SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In a blow to the right-to-die movement, California lawmakers on Tuesday dropped one of the strongest legislative efforts in the U.S. to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In a blow to the right-to-die movement, California lawmakers on Tuesday dropped one of the strongest legislative efforts in the U.S. to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives.
The move came despite pleas involving the case of Brittany Maynard, who moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Oregon, which has a right-to-die law, when she was 29 so she could die on her own terms after a brain cancer diagnosis.
Aid-in-dying advocates had hoped the nationally publicized case would prompt a wave of new right-to-die laws. But no state has passed such legislation this year, with efforts defeated or stalling in Colorado, Maine, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and elsewhere.
The authors of the California legislation that would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs lacked enough support to get through committees this year amid fierce religious opposition.
Sponsors vowed to continue the fight in the Legislature. Meanwhile, aid-in-dying advocates have said they would take the issue to voters if the effort by lawmakers failed.
Religious opponents including the Catholic Church helped defeat similar legislation in 2007 in California, saying it amounts to assisted suicide and goes after God’s will.
Some advocates for people with disabilities say terminally ill patients could be pressured to end their lives to avoid burdening their families.
Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington have court decisions or laws permitting doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs. A court ruling is pending in New Mexico.
California’s bill was modeled on Oregon’s law, which has been used in more than 750 deaths since voters approved it in 1994.