By Sara Watson Arthurs
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Assemblywoman Patty Berg said Tuesday that she thinks the Legislature will eventually pass a bill legalizing assisted suicide, but that it will take some time to overcome squeamishness about discussing the issue.
"Even though I'm disappointed that we had to hold it this year, because I was very optimistic of being able to move it through, I'm also very hopeful," she said.
Berg, D-Eureka, and Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, announced Monday that they were putting their bill on hold until January.
Assembly Bill 651, previously Assembly Bill 654, would allow terminally ill patients to request a prescription for medication for the purpose of ending their lives. The patient must have a prognosis of six months or less to live, be evaluated and pronounced mentally competent, and be counseled on other alternatives. It's modeled after an Oregon bill passed by voters in 1997.
Berg noted polling data that shows that the majority of Californians -- including Democrats and Republicans, and including many Californians who identify as religious -- support the proposal.
"It's one of those things where the people are ahead of the politicians," she said.
Opponents disagreed. Californians Against Assisted Suicide, a coalition of agencies opposed to the bill, said their members include Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from many professions and faiths.
"The bottom line is that most legislators, and Californians, do not think doctors should be actively helping to kill patients," said spokesman Tim Rosales in a press release.
But Berg noted that a majority of legislators support abortion rights, an issue she sees as philosophically parallel.
"To me this is a choice issue," she said. "It's very difficult to support choice at the beginning of life and not support choice at the end of life."
While some legislators actively oppose the bill, many others are ambivalent, she said.
"For many folks, they've not even thought about this before," she said. "It wasn't on their radar screen. We tend to be a society in denial of death and denial of aging."
Whatever happens with the bill itself, the discussion has helped break some of that denial, said Hospice of Humboldt Executive Director Linda Marcuz-Kehl.
The agency has not taken a position either for or against the law. But Marcuz-Kehl said the public debate, overlapping with the national dialogue over the fate of Florida woman Terri Schiavo, means the last several months have been a time of eroding some of the taboos around discussing death.
"We're working really hard to get people to take a look at the fact that every single one of us is going to die," Marcuz-Kehl said. "There's no other way."
She said she hopes these high-profile discussions have caused individual families to talk about what they want at the end of their lives, to be aware of options like palliative care and to put their wishes in writing.
While the Legislature won't take up the subject again until next year, Berg said she plans in the meantime to continue discussing the matter with constituents, holding focus groups and seeking the endorsement of various agencies.
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