CALIFORNIA Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday, Oct. 5, signed landmark legislation that allows physicians to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients wishing to end their lives.
His signature comes about three weeks after the measure cleared the state Legislature and will make California the fifth state where aid in dying is legal.
In a signing statement, Brown, a lifelong Catholic and former Jesuit seminarian, said he carefully weighed the viewpoints of those opposed to and in favor of the right-to-die bill. Among positions he considered were those of two of his former doctors, former classmates, friends, a Catholic bishop and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Brown also read letters from the family of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old Californian who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and moved to Oregon last year to legally end her life.
“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown wrote.
“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.”
California’s End of Life Option Act is modeled after Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, which was enacted in 1997. It requires that two doctors approve patients’ requests to die, that patients submit several written requests, that patients are physically capable of taking the medication, and that there are two witnesses present, one of whom is not a family member.
The act is scheduled to go into effect next year.
The act ends 23 years of efforts aimed at legalizing aid in dying in California. Similar measures introduced in 2005, 2006 and 2007 failed in the Legislature. It also follows attempts from at least 24 states that introduced such legislation this year, though the measures stalled elsewhere, according to The Associated Press.
Other states that allow doctors to prescribe patients life-ending drugs are Oregon, Montana, Vermont and Washington.
Advocates react
Proponents of the legislation rejoiced upon learning of the news. The Los Angeles Times reported that the action brought tears of joy to former LAPD Detective Christy O’Donnell, who testified in favor of the new law and was diagnosed with a few months left to live due to lung cancer.
“I’m overjoyed for all the terminally ill people in California, who can now relax knowing they finally have the choice of aid in dying as one of their end-of-life options,” said O’Donnell, mentioning she does not think she will live to see the day the law is implemented. “No more worrying that they will suffer great physical and emotional pain at the end of their life when they have already suffered painfully for so long as a result of their terminal illnesses.”
For other advocates of ABX215, the governor’s signature was a victory that came too late.
“I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” Deb Reuter-Zsarko, whose wife Michelle died earlier this year after a six-year battle with vulvar cancer, told the Asian Journal. She also recounted waking up one morning to a pool of blood, and how having the choice the new law provides would have been helpful earlier on.
““People need a choice. She never had a choice in any of this…. [This law] is the right thing to do. And ultimately it comes down to the fact that it’s an option…There’s no one forcing you to do anything,” Reuter-Zsarko said.
Compassion & Choices, a group that advocated for the new law, told the Times it hopes other states will follow in California’s footsteps.
“This is the biggest victory for the death-with-dignity movement since Oregon passed the nation’s first law two decades ago,” Barbara Coombs Lee, the group’s president, told the publication. “This victory is hugely significant in both substance and scope. Enactment of this law in California means we are providing this option to more than one in 10 Americans.
Opponents cite moral and religious reasons
Lawmakers who opposed the act included Republicans for moral reasons and Democrats who cited religious views and experiences where family members were given months to live but survived for years, the Times reported.
Tim Rosales, a spokesman for a group called Californians Against Assisted Suicide, spoke against the governor’s decision.
“This is a dark day for California and the Brown legacy,” Rosales said in a statement. “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 of patients.”
Religious groups, including the Catholic Church and disability rights advocates, also opposed the bill, contending it legalizes premature suicide and puts terminally ill patients at risk for coerced death, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
“Today the State of California is making it legal for a doctor to write prescriptions for the express purpose of killing another human being,” Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement issued Monday. “This is a new path for the State and we have no idea where it will lead.”
“How does the State plan to prevent lethal prescriptions to commit suicide from becoming the only ‘option’ available for the poor?
“We should not say to future generations that we responded to human pain and suffering by making it easier for those who suffer to kill themselves. We are a better people than that,” he said.
Before the measure passed, the Church addressed Catholic lawmakers and urged Brown to veto it, according to the AP.
“Pope Francis invites all of us to create our good society by seeing through the eyes of those who are on the margins, those in need economically, physically, psychologically and socially,” the California Catholic Conference said in a statement after it cleared the state Legislature. “We ask the governor to veto this bill.”
