California assisted suicide bill advances
in special session
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[September 02, 2015]
By Sharon Bernstein
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A
controversial bill to allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally
ill patients in California passed a key legislative committee on
Tuesday, after failing in the legislature earlier this summer amid
opposition from the Catholic Church.
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The measure, which passed 10-2, next goes to the assembly finance
committee.
The bill was pulled from consideration in the legislature's regular
session in July but was reintroduced last month as part of a special
session on healthcare called by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown.
"The more time we've had to work on it, the more support we have,"
said Senator Bill Monning, a Democrat from Carmel who is a co-author
of the bill. "Every major newspaper in the state has editorialized
in support."
Last weekend, conservative columnist George Will wrote a column
supporting assisted suicide, breaking with many conservatives to do
so.
Backers have tried numerous times to legalize aid-in-dying in
California, without success.
Last year, the issue burst into public consciousness in California
after a 29-year-old cancer patient, Brittany Maynard, moved to
Oregon to take advantage of that state's assisted suicide law.
With polls showing consistent support for such a measure in the most
populous U.S. state, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill after
Maynard's death to make it legal for a doctor to prescribe
medication for a terminally ill patient to end his or her life.
The practice is opposed by many doctors, who feel they should
preserve life rather than help to end it, the Catholic Church and
many conservative religious groups. Disability rights activists fear
disabled people will be pushed to end their lives by insurance
companies or relatives who do not want to care for them.
Assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington, Montana and
Vermont.
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After the powerful California Medical Association removed its
opposition to the latest bill last spring, backers hoped it would
pass.
The measure made it through the state Senate, a more liberal body
where it has strong support. But it stalled in the health committee
of the state Assembly amid concern from some lawmakers with large
Catholic constituencies that the Church was strongly opposed to it.
The committee, however, has different members for the special
session on healthcare and on Tuesday the bill passed.
The California bill makes it a felony to pressure someone into
physician-assisted suicide. It also forbids insurance companies from
sending patients information about aid-in-dying drugs unless the
patient has requested it.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
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