California law on assisted suicide awaits governor's signature
The California State Legislature on Friday approved a bill that would permit physician-assisted suicide, the New York Times reported.
Now the legislation awaits the signature of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who has not indicated his position but did criticize bringing the bill forward in a special session, in which it would skip scrutiny by Assembly committees. A similar bill failed earlier this year after pressure from the Roman Catholic Church, and it was brought back for the special session. Others bills to legalize assisted suicide have failed before.
If the measure is signed into law, California would become the fifth state to permit physicians to prescribe life-ending medications, joining Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont.
California’s bill tracks Oregon’s 1997 statute, though it would be subject to reapproval in 10 years and, in deference to opponents, physicians would be required to consult with patients in private to help ensure they indeed are willing to end their lives.
More than half the states and the District of Columbia have considered bills this year for some version of assisted suicide, the Times reports.
This past year the issue had a public face in Brittany Maynard, a Bay Area woman whose plight gained national attention. Maynard was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and moved to Oregon so she could die on her own terms. She died in November 2014 at age 29.
A recent Gallup poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans approve of assisted suicide, a 10 percent jump from last year.
Also last Friday, the British Parliament voted against physician-assisted suicide, refusing to join some northern European countries that permit the practice, including Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
A prominent critic of the California legislation, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, director of the medical ethics program at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, told the Times that the law would burden the poor. He noted case of an Oregon woman, Barbara Wagner, whose insurance wouldn’t cover an expensive cancer treatment but would pay for a physician to aid in her death.
“As soon as this is introduced,” Kheriaty says, “it immediately becomes the cheapest and most expedient way to deal with complicated end-of-life situations.”
But families won’t bring such economic pressure on loved ones, says George Eighmey, a former Oregon legislator and now vice president of the Death With Dignity National Center based in Portland, Oregon, because “it’s always the loved ones who want the dying person to try one more round of chemo, one more treatment down in Mexico.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 dismissed the Justice Department’s attempt to block Oregon’s then 9-year-old statute, but still the practice has not become widespread.
California, being such a large state, would likely be a game-changer. “If it becomes the law in California, that’s going to be very, very significant,” Eighmey said.
