March 20, 2006VOL. 44, NO. 6Oakland, CA

Political battle expected in state
over physician-assisted suicide legislation

By Julie Sly
The Catholic Herald

As legislators prepare to debate whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide in California, opponents of the practice say they will continue their intense lobbying efforts to make sure lawmakers do not pass legislation this year.

Advocates of assisted suicide say though the ethical concerns of some wavering lawmakers remain an obstacle to approval, they are hopeful that California could become the first state since Oregon to allow assisted suicide.

The debate is expected to heat up in mid-April, when Assemblymembers Patty Berg, D-Eureka, and Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, will hold a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Assembly Bill 651, a measure that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to patients who have been declared mentally competent and terminally ill by two physicians.

Berg and Levine tried unsuccessfully last year to pass another assisted
suicide measure, but abandoned the effort because of a lack of support to get the bill out of the Assembly. They resurrected the measure in the state Senate and are aggressively campaigning to get it passed.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in late January he would rather see

assisted suicide addressed in a voter initiative than in the Legislature and has declined to take a stand on the proposed legislation.

AB 651 faces a broad alliance of opposition from Californians Against Assisted Suicide, a grassroots coalition that includes the California Catholic Conference and the Alliance for Catholic Healthcare. Among the other organizations aligned with CAAS are the California Medical Association, the California Disability Alliance, the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, the Western Service Workers Association, the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

As part of their advocacy effort, the CAAS on March 7 in Sacramento released the results of a poll of Latinos across the state which shows that 64 percent oppose allowing doctors to help terminally ill people die.

The results “speak volumes about how the Latino community opposes doctor-assisted suicide,” said Angel Luevano, state director of LULAC, at a press conference. “Latinos know that this is morally wrong. We don’t see this as a partisan issue, but one that concerns civil and human rights.”

Luevano said LULAC plans to give the results of the poll to lawmakers “who are still on the fence” regarding their votes on legalizing assisted suicide. “We thought this legislation was dead last year,” he said. “We want to focus instead on issues such as education, access to health care and health insurance. Those are the real problems that actually matter in our community.”

Tim Rosales, spokesman for CAAS, said the poll of Latinos supports the idea that when people are informed about the nuances of proposed physician-assisted suicide legislation, they will reject it.

“The poll was very direct and after respondents were given the arguments on both sides, Latinos overwhelmingly opposed assisted suicide,” he said. “The bill we are fighting permits doctors to prescribe legal doses of lethal drugs. It’s not about improving end-of-life care. People understand the two issues are very different.”

A February Field Poll found that 57 percent of California adults support AB 651 and 34 percent oppose the bill, according to results released March 15. The poll found support for the general idea of allowing people to terminate their own lives was even higher, at 70 percent of adults.

Californians have consistently expressed majority support for assisted suicide in polls since at least 1979. However, assisted suicide measures failed at both the ballot box in 1992 and in the Legislature in 1999.

The Field Poll also showed that the percentage of people who said they would want a doctor to help them die if they were terminally ill themselves dropped to 62 percent, from 68 percent last year.

Fifty-six percent of Protestants said they support the legislation, as do 54 percent of Roman Catholics. But 67 percent of people who identified themselves as born-again Christians said they oppose legalizing the option.
Seventy-seven percent of Democrats in the poll said they favor allowing terminally ill patients to request a lethal prescription to end their own lives and 47 percent of Republicans said they support the idea.

AB 651’s sponsors say they are presenting the California Compassionate Choices Act in the more liberal state Senate in hopes that approval there would add more impetus to a campaign in the Assembly.

At a March 9 press conference in Sacramento, Berg and Levine said they were encouraged by support for their bill from Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles.

They acknowledged that because many legislators’ positions are uncertain a reliable vote count is not yet possible.

Earlier this year all members of the Senate Republican Caucus signed a letter of opposition to physician-assisted suicide.

Two Democratic Assemblywomen who are Catholic, Cindy Montanez, D-San Fernando, and Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, have been vocal in their opposition to assisted suicide measures. They first spoke out last year when Berg and Levine tried to move their bill through the Assembly.

Parra issued a statement in late January, the day after Schwarzenegger’s comments, reaffirming her opposition to physician-assisted suicide.

Parra also said she is concerned about the possibility of assisted suicide coercion, especially in her district, with its large working poor population, because some ill people might feel they were a burden to their family.

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