Doing nothing could mean a rough decision at the ballot box.
Sunday, July 17, 2005 - California's proposed Death with Dignity law has stalled in the Legislature, failing to earn political support necessary for a vote. But with the public, an assisted suicide law remains extremely popular.
About 70 percent of state residents favor such a law, and nearly the same number say they would like to maintain the option for themselves.
When politicians are greatly out of step with popular sentiment on an issue, sooner or later it winds up at the ballot box. That's what happened with assisted suicide in Oregon, when voters in 1994 passed a law after their Legislature failed to act on popular support.
Unfortunately the ballot box is the least preferable way to set public policy. There's no reason for the California Legislature to rush an assisted suicide bill into law, but if it doesn't move at all, the state is likely to see a ballot measure, sooner than later. And an initiative might not pay as close attention to the fine print.
While most Californians favor the idea of assisted suicide, according to the latest Field Poll earlier this year, we can safely say they would prefer a carefully considered law with every possible safeguard against potential abuse.
Jack Newbold of Oregon, who was the subject of Nicholas Kristof's column on Tuesday's Comment page, is probably the type of person most Californians have in mind when they consider an assisted suicide law favorably. Newbold is dying of a painful form of bone cancer, has less than six months left to live, and wants to at least have the option of ending his life if the pain and loss of control become too great in the coming weeks and months.
If California does legalize a deeply personal choice, with patients like Newbold in mind, it must also consider the potential abuses cited by critics impaired mental capacity, for one, as well as improper influence of friends or family members whose own agenda might not match the patient's.
The Oregon law requires two independent doctor's confirmations that the patient has less than six months to live, and three requests by the patient (two spoken and one written) over no fewer than 15 days. Patients may then obtain a lethal prescription that only they can administer to themselves. No doctor, under the law, is forced to write the prescriptions.
California Legislators could decide to use a version of Oregon's law, amend it, or write a new one. Doing nothing, though, is the surest way to wind up with yet another expensive and divisive ballot campaign.
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