Aid-in-dying bill clears special session committee

SACRAMENTO — In a room filled with the pleas of the dying, California lawmakers approved a bill that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal prescriptions to terminal patients wanting to hasten their own deaths.

[...] after the Legislature returned from summer recess last month, lawmakers instead announced that the bill was renamed ABX2-15 and would be heard in a special session on health care instead of during the regular session.

The move allowed the bill to bypass the Assembly’s regular session health committee and go to a smaller special session committee on health that does not include several of the Democrats who had opposed the bill.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who called the special session to deal with funding shortages in the Medi-Cal system, has not publicly weighed in on the aid-in-dying legislation, but his spokeswoman said it would be “more appropriate” for the bill to go through the regular session in 2016, not the special session this year.

Opponents of the bill include the Catholic Church, some disability rights organizations and the Association of Northern California Oncologists, which said the bill runs contrary to the physician’s oath to do no harm.

Marilyn Golden, a senior policy analyst at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in Berkeley, said safeguards in the bill are not enough to protect the vulnerable, who could be pressured by greedy family members to take life-ending drugs.

“Adding this so-called choice into our health care system will push people into cheaper lethal options,” Golden said.