
CV NEWS FEED // A California proposal to increase access to physician-assisted suicide in the state was recently withdrawn by its author due to significant opposition.
POLITICO reported that Democratic Sen. Catherine Blakespear, the bill’s author, removed the proposal from consideration before its first scheduled hearing on April 22.
“At this point, there is a reluctance from many around me to take up this discussion, and the future is unclear,” Blakespear said in a statement, according to POLITICO. “The topic, however, remains of great interest to me and to those who have supported this bill thus far.”
Blakespear’s proposal would have amended California’s current End of Life Option Act, which currently allows state residents with a terminal disease to request assisted suicide drugs from a physician. Death with Dignity statutes require physicians to verify that the patient only has up to six months left to live before they can request assisted suicide drugs.
The proposal would have changed much of the current Act’s language, significantly increasing access to physician-assisted suicide. The “terminal disease” requirement would have been changed to “grievous and irremediable medical condition,” that places the patient “in a state of irreversible decline in capability and the individuals’ suffering is palpable without prospect of improvement.”
In addition to other changes to the language, the proposal would have added dementia as an acceptable medical condition that merits physician-assisted suicide and allowed for the self-administration of assisted-suicide drugs through intravenous injection.
The bill clarified that a diagnosis of a mental health disorder is not a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”
POLITICO reported that in addition to receiving pushback from pro-life and Catholic groups, the proposal was met with opposition from physician-assisted suicide advocacy groups.
“Compassion & Choices, a national group that lobbies for end of life options, was against it from the start for straying from the six-month standard for terminal patients and for including dementia,” POLITICO reported.
Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, the author of the current End of Life Options Act, posted on X that she also did not support the proposal.
“While I have compassion for those desiring further change, pushing for too much too soon puts CA & the country at risk of losing the gains we have made for personal autonomy,” she said.
The California Catholic Conference opposed Blakespear’s proposal as well, calling for Catholics throughout the state to contact their senators and urge them to reject the bill.
“Right now, millions of Californians don’t have health care and can’t find doctors or hospitals. The State needs to ensure people have good and accessible healthcare so that people with chronic illnesses don’t feel coerced into dying prematurely,” the Conference said in a statement. “No one should feel compelled to use assisted suicide due to a scarcity of housing, food, pain management, mental health treatment, home health, or psycho-social support.”
