Assisted suicide has been resurrected and cleared its next to last hurdle through California’s State Senate Friday with Governor Jerry Brown the last opportunity for opponents to kill the bill.
Wednesday California’s State Assembly resurrected from the dead and passed an assisted suicide bill. It will now pass to the State Senate, which has previously passed such legislation.
On Friday, three San Francisco doctors brought a request for a preliminary injunction to allow them to flout state law and help their terminally ill patients commit suicide.
California Senate Bill 128, which allows terminally ill people to end their own lives, has looked like a shoo-in for passage, but suddenly some key southern California legislators may stand in the way.
Assisted suicide legislation in California is in danger of dying itself, as a vote in the State Assembly Health Committee slated for Tuesday was delayed another two weeks.
The California Medical Association, capitulating to proponents of “physician-assisted suicide,” has become the first medical association in the country to eschew opposing the practice.
An assisted suicide bill which would allow physicians in California to administer lethal drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill patients to accelerate their deaths, passed the first of two state Senate committee panels on Wednesday. The hearing was an emotional one, and legislators heard starkly opposing views.