Governor
Jerry Brown has signed legislation to let terminally ill people take their own
lives in California. It will become the fifth US state to allow dying patients
to use doctor-prescribed drugs to end their lives.
Deutsche Welle, 6 Oct 2015
Death with dignity |
Physician-assisted suicide will become legal in California in 2016 under a bill signed into law on
Monday by Governor Jerry Brown. The 77-year-old Democrat and lifelong Catholic
and former Jesuit seminarian said he had acted after discussing the issue with
many people, including two of his own doctors. The South African archbishop and
rights icon Desmond Tutu had spoken out in favor of it.
"I do
not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating
pain," Brown said in a statement released Monday. "I am certain,
however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded
by this bill."
Brown said
he wouldn't deny those comforts to others. The law cannot take effect until 90
days after the California legislature's special session on health care formally
ends, effectively delaying its implementation until at least mid-2016.
'A gentle
death'
A version
of the bill failed earlier this year despite publicity surrounding Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old with brain cancer who left California for Oregon in 2014
to legally end her life. Her mother, Debbie Ziegler, testified in committee
hearings and carried a large picture of her daughter.
Maynard had
pleaded that terminally ill people shouldn't have to "leave their home and
community for peace of mind, to escape suffering and to plan for a gentle
death."
#BrittanyMaynard Legislative Testimony-My right 2 death with dignity @ 29 #DeathWithDignity
https://t.co/778UtJRJL5 pic.twitter.com/51ZigLcrQf
— AbigailAdamsBrigade (@AdamsBrigade) 6 oktober 2015
The
Catholic Church and other groups alleged that the measure would legalize
premature suicide and put terminally ill patients at risk for coerced death.
However, the bill includes requirements that patients submit multiple written
requests for the medication, that two doctors approve it if the patient has
less than six months to live, that patients physically take the medication
themselves and that two witnesses observe the death.
The bill's
advocates had tried for decades to persuade California to legalize the practice
as a way to help end-stage cancer sufferers and other patients to die with less
pain and suffering. Since 1992, similar measures had failed several times in
the legislature or the ballot box before the current bill passed the State
Assembly, 44-35, and Senate, 23-14, last month. As presently written, the law
will expire after 10 years unless extended, a compromise with lawmakers who had
worried that insurance companies might target low-income Californians, the
elderly and people with disabilities to save costs.
At least
two dozen states introduced right-to-die legislation this year, though the
measures have stalled in several. Doctors in the states of Oregon, Washington,
Vermont and Montana can already prescribe life-ending drugs.
Over the summer, Germany's parliament opened debate on physician-assisted suicide, but
the movement to allow more access to life-ending options has come up against language in the constitution.
mkg/cmk (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)
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