Survey shows the concept is embraced across party and religious lines in state.
By Aurelio Rojas -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, March 2, 2005
More than two-thirds of Californians support the concept of doctor-assisted suicide, a new Field Poll has found.
The survey - the first on the issue by the Field organization since 1999 - was released a week after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider the Bush administration's case against Oregon's assisted-suicide law.
In California, legislation was introduced last month by Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Sebastopol, that would allow assisted suicide in the state.
In the Field Poll, 70 percent of adults agreed that incurably ill patients should have the right to ask for and receive life-ending medication. Twenty-two percent opposed the concept.
In addition, 68 percent of respondents - including 62 percent of people 65 years or older - would personally want to have this option if they were ill.
"There is majority of support, regardless of party affiliation and with all other major subgroups," said Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.
"There's slightly more support among certain religious denominations, but even there, the majority are supportive."
One respondent who supports doctor-assisted suicide is Jay Stott, 86, of Chico.
"I'm getting along in years, and if I want to go out, I don't want any damn legal hullabaloo in my way," Stott said in an interview. "I want to go peacefully at my own desire."
The poll is the seventh since the Field Poll first began measuring public opinion on the issue in 1979. Support has never dropped below 64 percent and has reached 70 percent or higher in four polls since 1995.
But despite polls indicating otherwise, Californians rejected a ballot measure in 1992 that would have allowed doctor-assisted euthanasia by 54 percent to 46 percent.
"There was a very low awareness of the ballot measure - and that's one of the reasons why it was defeated," DiCamillo said. "A grass-roots campaign dug its heels in at the very end and was able to tip people's initial support to the opposition."
Sacramento Republican consultant Wayne Johnson, who is working with opponents of assisted suicide, predicts a similar outcome with this year's legislation.
The Field Poll, however found little support for two of the major arguments against assisted suicide.
Only 39 percent of respondents believed it is a bad idea because it would put doctors in the position of deciding who lives and who dies.
And only 32 percent believed that assisted suicide devalues life.
Bonnie Hinojos, a respondent who lives in Fresno, said in an interview that she supported doctor-assisted suicide under certain circumstances.
"If it's just a matter of time, and there's no alternative, then I think people should have the right to decide for themselves," said Hinojos, 68, whose husband died of cancer last year.
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