How the New “Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act” Could Threaten Conscience Rights.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the new Senate Bill 693 titled the “Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act” (now referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) and warned about the current and future involvement of Compassion and Choices (the former Hemlock Society now pushing for legalizing physician-assisted suicide throughout the US) in “end of life” education for healthcare professionals. But Compassion and Choices is not the only organization supporting practices that, until the last few decades, were universally condemned.  For example, last year the American Nurses Association took a position approving VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking) to hasten death  and that those decisions “will be honored” by nurses.