California Assisted Suicide Bill Temporarily Defeated

By Liz Townsend

        Although it failed to pass during this legislative session, a bill that would legalize assisted suicide in California will be reintroduced in January. A coalition of pro-life and disability rights groups will continue to fight against the bill, which is similar to the law in Oregon that allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients.

        “The bill is still alive,” Brian Johnston, NRLC Western director, told NRL News. “We can’t let down our guard. The coalition will continue to educate the people of California about the specifics of physician-assisted suicide and the abuses that routinely occur in places where it’s legal, such as Oregon and the Netherlands.”

        Democrat Assembly members Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine introduced Bill 654 in February. The bill provided that a patient determined by a physician to have “a terminal disease, and who has voluntarily expressed his or her wish to die, may make a written request for medication for the purpose of ending his or her life.”

        Although two committees approved the bill, its supporters could not muster the 41 votes needed to pass the bill on the floor of the Assembly by a July 3 deadline, the Los Angeles Times reported.

        On July 2, Berg and Levine declared the bill “inactive.” However, they were able to keep the bill alive by gutting and amending another piece of legislation already passed by the Assembly. The newly created assisted suicide bill, number 651, would have been voted on first by the Senate and then be returned to the Assembly in its altered form, according to the Sacramento Bee.

        Despite these machinations, Bill 651 failed to garner enough support in the Senate. Berg and Levine decided to delay action on the bill until the next legislative session begins in January, the Bee reported.

        Johnston said that education will be a focus of the pro-life coalition in the months until the bill is reintroduced. “The more people know about physician-assisted suicide, the less likely they are to support it,” he said. “Euthanasia advocates use buzzwords like ‘compassion’ and ‘mercy,’ calling assisted suicide just one more option for pain management. We need to point out the facts and get the truth out.”