Texas Has Death Panels? YES! And We Can Stop Them!

Most people probably remember when Sarah Palin revealed the death panels that Obamacare would create.

I bet most people do not know that Texas has death panels too!

Now that Conservative Republicans have taken over the Texas House of Representatives, we can put an end to these panels.

Read the following letter from Elizabeth Graham, the Director of Texas Right to Life:

End the Texas Death Panels

Texas Right to Life supports House Bill 3520 to restore the rights of patients and their families to make their own health care decisions.

The Human Services Committee of the State House will hear House Bill 3520, a bill to restore the rights of patients. House Bill 3520 would stop the operational death panels currently sanctioned by Texas law!

Texas law (Chapter 166.046 of the Health and Safety Code) allows a physician to override and ignore a patient’s advance directive or expressed wishes. A doctor or hospital can withdraw life-sustaining treatment (including food and water) from a patient after giving ten day’s notice. Once the physician’s decision is made and then approved by the ethics committee (aka the death panel) at the hospital, the patient and his family are thrust into a frenzy of legal skirmishes, quibbling with the facility over medical records, and blindly searching for new health care facilities that will treat their ailing loved one—all to beat the ten-day clock!

Texas Right to Life supports House Bill 3520 to restore the rights of patients and their families to make their own health care decisions; House Bill 3520 would also require sufficient time to transfer the patient. Eleven other states have enacted laws similar to that of House Bill 3520 by requiring the patient to be transferred to a more appropriate care setting—and not become a victim of involuntary euthanasia.

House Bill 3520 would:

  • expand the 10-day period and foster the transfer of the patient; 
  • allow a doctor to maintain the right to transfer the patient if treatment conflicts with the doctor’s judgment; 
  • safeguard the expressed wishes of the patient; 
  • improve the doctor-patient relationships; 
  • protect vulnerable Texans from the withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment (involuntary euthanasia); and 
  • strengthen the legitimacy of advance directives.

Please email all the members of the House Human Services Committee today to respectfully request support of House Bill 3520. In a few weeks, you will be asked to call your State Representative on this issue, but today, please email the committee members and provide your name and address so that the committee members know that a diverse segment of Texans want to stop involuntary euthanasia!

This bill is scheduled for public hearing in sub committee on April 20th.

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