Who controls our bodies in the face of terminal illness and suffering? The question raises many legal, social, religious, spiritual and moral issues.
California legislation SB 128, allows people to make a decision to have life ending medication prescribed to them if they have been determined to be terminally ill and meet other conditions. The bill is modeled after similar legislation in Oregon where brain cancer sufferer Brittany Maynard relocated from California so she could take advantage of that state's law. California's bill recently cleared the Senate after the California Medical Association changed its stance from opposing the bill to neutral. SB 128 is now (as of this writing) in the hands of the State's Assembly.
Note: Since this article was written SB 128 stalled and recent attempts to reintroduce the legislation have failed.
In spite of the often horrendous stories of long suffering patients and their families unable to legally choose to end the suffering through suicide, opposition to the bill remains strong and offers some compelling arguments. The best source for the oppositional view I have found is http://noassistedsuicideca.org. The site also lists support from many well-respected state organizations tasked with caring the sick and dying.
For a corresponding site to learn positive arguments on the issue, you might visit https://www.compassionandchoices.org/.
I decided to turn to a local palliative care specialist for some insight. Dr. Michael Fratkin recently launched Resolution Care (http://resolutioncare.com) with a new approach to end of life care. When I asked him what he thought about the "Right to Die" bill, his response was thoughtful, but offered no easy answers:
"I am pleased that many aspects relating to how we care for each other in the approach to death are being addressed by an electrified social conversation. Discussions of empowerment are critical to the redesign of our broken healthcare system. I am also an advocate for more and better palliative care for everyone and we are a long way from that. I am against overly simplistic arguments that come from righteousness in the face of the most profound and personal challenge that any of us will ever face. I look forward to vigorous and respectful debate as we grapple with this difficult and important issue."
Perhaps, then, physician assisted suicide, if appropriately handled would be a valuable tool, but only in the context of a much larger change in the overall practice of care for the dying. It's relatively easy to pass a bill to permit suicides. It's much more difficult to restructure an entire segment of the medical profession to ensure that such drastic options are almost never needed. But maybe the latter needs to happen before the former.