October 7, 2015
California governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Monday a bill permitting doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients expecting to die within six months and wishing to prematurely end their lives, reports the Los Angeles Times.
A former Jesuit seminary student, Brown considered the religious objections, including of the Catholic Church, while struggling to make a decision concerning the bill.
“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown wrote in a signing message. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”
The new law, which will go into effect ninety days after the Legislature’s special healthcare session, which could be as late as November next year, was modeled after the 1997 law in Oregon, where 752 people have committed state-sanctioned suicide since its passing.
Spokesman for Californians Against Assisted Suicide, which includes doctors, advocates for the disabled, the California Catholic Conference and other religious groups, Tim Rosales criticized Brown’s decision:
“This is a dark day for California and for the Brown legacy,” Rosales said. “As someone of wealth and access to the world’s best medical care and doctors, the governor's background is very different than that of millions of Californians living in healthcare poverty without that same access — these are the people and families potentially hurt by giving doctors the power to prescribe lethal overdoses to patients.”
The bill “is not an ordinary bill because it deals with life and death,” Brown, who himself has defeated cancer several times, wrote. “The crux of the matter is whether the state of California should continue to make it a crime for a dying person to end his life, no matter how great his pain or suffering.”
The majority of Republican lawmakers morally objected to the bill, and some Democrats also opposed it, citing religious views and experiences with family members diagnosed as terminally ill who continued to live for many years.
Such bills have failed in the Legislature in 2005, 2006, and 2007, and in 1992 California voters denied physicians the right to administer deadly injections to the terminally ill. Critics have pointed out that this current bill was irregularly introduced in a special session on healthcare funding after it failed to find enough votes in a regular legislative session.
In addition to Oregon suicide by physician is also permitted in Washington, Vermont and Montana.
