 "Victory for death with dignity: California legalises assisted suicide")
In a landmark decision, and a massive victory for advocates of the right to die, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law a Bill that legalises doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in the most populous state of the United States.
California is the sixth state in the US to legalise assisted suicide after Washington, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico and Montana. Across the world, assisted suicide is legal in countries like Switzerland, Germany, Japan and Albania.
Governor Brown, who has been described as a ‘pious Catholic’, put his seal of approval on a Bill that had been passed by the California state legislature in September. According to The Economist, the development comes on the heels of the case of Brittany Maynard, a young Californian woman whose diagnosis of terminal brain cancer had turned her into a passionate advocate for the cause. In 2014, she had moved to Oregon, the first American state to legalise doctor-assisted dying, and had ended her life there under supervision. She had also made a video urging California’s lawmakers to pass a law similar to Oregon’s ‘Death with Dignity’ law.
California’s new law is indeed similar to its Oregon counterpart. The California law will expire after 10 years and will have to be reapproved. Under the new law, doctors would have to consult the patient desiring to die, in private, as part of an effort to ensure that no one would be coerced to end his or her life — a primary concern for opponents of the law, a New York Times report said.
Assisted suicide differs from active voluntary euthanasia in that a physician-assisted suicide entails making lethal means available to the patient to be used at a time of the patient’s own choosing. By contrast, voluntary active euthanasia entails the physician taking a pro-active role in carrying out the patient’s request, and usually involves intravenous delivery of a lethal substance.
