Governor Jerry Brown signed bill to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives amid strong opposition from disability advocates and religious groups
California will become the fifth state to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives using doctor-prescribed drugs after Governor Jerry Brown announced Monday he signed one of the most emotionally charged bills of the year.
Brown, a lifelong Catholic and former Jesuit seminarian, announced he signed the legislation after thoroughly considering all opinions and discussing the issue with many people, including a Catholic bishop and two of Brown’s doctors.
“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” the governor wrote in a signing statement that accompanied his signature on the legislation. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill.
He added he wouldn’t deny that right to others.
Until now, Brown had declined to comment on the issue.
State lawmakers approved the bill on 11 September. A previous version failed this year despite the highly publicized case of 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, a California woman with brain cancer who moved to Oregon to end her life.
Opponents said the bill legalizes premature suicide, but supporters called that comparison inappropriate because it applies to mentally sound, terminally ill people and not those who are depressed or impaired.
Religious groups and advocates for people with disabilities opposed the bill and nearly identical legislation that had stalled in the legislature weeks earlier, saying it goes against the will of God and put terminally ill patients at risk for coerced death.
Read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/05/california-assisted-dying-legal-fifth-state
