Facilitating Assisted Suicide Is Not The Way to Go (Appeared in Capitol Weekly, Sacramento, California, May 22, 2008) Marilyn Golden Policy Analyst, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) From the title of Assemblymember Patty Berg’s piece in the May 15th issue of Capitol Weekly, A little honest talk isn’t going to hurt anyone — really, you would think the article would reflect some truth in advertising. Unfortunately, readers had no such luck. The real “honest talk” about AB 2747 is that it has very little to do with improving care. For this bill, the devil is really in the details. Close inspection reveals it to be a vehicle for Compassion and Choices’ long-term agenda: facilitating assisted suicide. Let’s not forget that this is the organization formerly known as the Hemlock Society and one of the primary sponsors of this legislation. The bill includes many elements that would significantly undermine end-of-life care in service of this goal. This bill represents a change in strategy by Compassion and Choices after three years of defeat. Every year since 2005, the group tried to legalize assisted suicide in California. Each year, strong bi-partisan opposition defeated that legislation. On a new tack, this bill would pave the way for their hoped-for future legalization of assisted suicide. AB 2747 would mandate that doctors discuss with patients still a year from death, unusual end-of-life courses of action including voluntarily starving and dehydrating themselves, which is not even a medical treatment. Opposition by the doctors who are most experienced with end-of-life care, such as the Association of Northern California Oncologists, illustrates how medically inappropriate these mandates are. This heavy-handed bill would damage doctor/patient relationships by mandating a discussion of ways a patient can end her life at the very time when physicians are pursuing valuable treatment efforts, such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Patients will be confused about physicians’ true motivations and whether they are doing all they can for patients’ health and well-being. Moreover, mandating a discussion on ways a patient can end his life by forcing a doctor to discuss the same life-ending options with every terminal patient is risky and inappropriate. It is risky because it can sound like the doctor is endorsing or encouraging the patient to end his life. It is inappropriate because intimate, personal discussions during emotional times should not be mandated by law. To mandate this discussion a year in advance of death is shockingly early. It is not unusual for a “terminal” patient to dramatically outlive her terminal prognosis by many years. To force such a discussion on a patient at that time is not fair to the patient. One must ask what end is served by this timing. Moreover, many cancer patients who see a doctor with a late diagnosis are in the final stages of their disease, and are uninsured or under-insured. Such patients may feel the economic pressures are too great, and submit to the physicians’ mandated directions on ways to end their lives, in order to save their families the burden of health care costs. The option of ending their lives prematurely should not be the solution to the economic problems associated with health care. AB 2747 also suggests patient referrals to the very groups promoting assisted suicide, such as Compassion and Choices, to provide information and counsel patients on their eventual end-of-life care options at this very early one-year prognosis point. Again, one must ask why. Despite recent minor amendments, the problems with the bill remain significant and numerous. It should be opposed unless significantly amended, to bring the bill into line with the ostensible, harmless goals being touted as AB 2747’s true aims.

As many of you know, AB 2747 (Berg) has been double-referred to both Senate Health and Judiciary Committees. The hearing of the bill in Senate Health will be June 25th and the bill has not yet been calendared for a hearing in Judiciary. Most likely the bill would be heard in Judiciary on June 24th. Please send your letters of opposition as soon as possible to both the committees and committee members if you haven’t already done so. You can direct your letters of opposition to the committee and legislator fax numbers listed below. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. 916.324.0384 – Senate Health Committee 916.324.4283 – Sen. Sheila Kuehl (Chair) – West Los Angeles, Santa Monica 916.445.7750 – Sen. Sam Aanestad (Vice Chair) – Redding, Shasta, Tehama, Chico 916.324.0283 – Sen. Elaine Alquist – San Jose 916.327.8817 – Sen. Gil Cedillo – Los Angeles 916.324.2680 – Sen. Dave Cox – Sacramento, Placer, Amador 916.445.8081 – Sen. Abel Maldonado – Central Coast 916.445.0128 – Sen. Gloria Negrete-McCleod – San Bernardino 916.445.8899 – Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas – Los Angeles 916.446.7382 – Sen. Mark Wyland – North San Diego 916.327.2186 – Sen. Leland Yee PhD – San Francisco 916.445.8390 - Senate Judiciary Committee 916.327.2483 – Sen. Ellen Corbett (Chair) – San Leandro, Fremont, Newark, Hayward 916.445.9263 – Sen. Tom Harman (Vice-Chair) – Huntington Beach, Orange County 916.445.9754 – Sen. Dick Ackerman – Tustin, Orange County 916.324.4283 – Sen. Sheila Kuehl – West Los Angeles, Santa Monica 916.323.2263 – Sen. Darrell Steinberg – Sacramento