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<h1>Assisted-suicide plan resurfaces</h1>
<h2>After a year in limbo, the issue still raises hackles, a Senate
committee finds.</h2>
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<h3>By Jim Sanders -- Bee Capitol Bureau</h3>
Published 12:01 am PDT Wednesday, June 21, 2006 <script type="text/javascript">var ppn='Page A3';if(ppv==1){ppn='<a href="/content/print_edition/#MAIN NEWS">'+ppn+'</a>';}document.write('Story appeared on '+ppn+' of The
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Story appeared on <a href="/content/print_edition/#MAIN NEWS">Page
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<div class="mimg"><img border="0" alt="" width="320" src=
"http://www.sacbee.com/static/rich_content_images/261354-suicide.jpg"
height="212">
Sandra Butler, who has terminal cancer, listens at a news
conference on assisted suicide as Dr. Nicholas Gideonse speaks.
<span>Sacramento Bee/Anne Chadwick Williams
<div class="clear"> </div>
</div>
<div id="storyBody" style=
" font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class=
"storytext">Legislation to make California the second state to
allow doctor-assisted suicide by terminally ill patients returned
to the spotlight Tuesday after more than a year on a Capitol shelf.
Moral and ethical questions abounded in a nearly three-hour
informational hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but one
thing was perfectly clear: The lengthy delay hasn't quieted
controversy.
Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, vowed to keep fighting
nonetheless.
"I believe in it with all my heart," she said of the
bill.
The committee is expected to vote on the measure next Tuesday. A
Senate floor vote could follow.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, in a speech Monday to the
Sacramento Press Club, said he personally supports Assembly Bill
651 but will not push his Senate Democratic Caucus to do likewise.
"This is a personal thing that everybody must decide for
him- or herself," he said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken no position on AB 651 and
typically does not do so until legislation is in its final form and
passes the Legislature.
In a January appearance at the Press Club, however,
Schwarzenegger said doctor-assisted suicide is a difficult issue
that should be decided by voters.
"I personally think that this is a decision probably that
should go to the people, like the death penalty or other big
issues," he said.
Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, who is teaming with Berg
on the bill, said it was coincidental that AB 651 resurfaced only
after ballots were cast in the June 6 primary.
But, ultimately, that might bolster prospects for the bill, he
said.
"Members are no longer locked in battle with one another,
so they may not be afraid that it's going to be used against
them," Levine said.
AB 651 would allow mentally competent patients who are not
expected to live for more than six months to obtain a prescription
for life-ending medication.
The legislation contains numerous requirements designed to
prevent a terminally ill patient from seeking life-ending
medication frivolously, impulsively or under duress.
The measure requires that two doctors agree on a patient's
prognosis, requires a 15-day waiting period, and mandates
counseling for patients who are not under hospice care.
Patients would have to administer the life-ending medication to
themselves.
Before Tuesday's hearing, Sandra Butler, a San Francisco woman
dying of lung cancer, appeared at a press conference to support the
bill.
"In the near future, I will reach the end of my days,"
she said. "It is my desire to die peacefully in the arms of my
loved ones, not in prolonged pain and agony."
Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing wrestled with two
ethical questions -- whether AB 651 would affect the value that
society places on life, and whether it would conflict with a
doctor's legal or ethical duties.
Six bioethics and medical experts, chosen by supporters and
opponents of AB 651, were invited to testify.
Doctor-assisted suicide was proposed last year in the Assembly,
but opposition prompted Berg and Levine to abandon a floor vote
there and amend their proposal into AB 651, which was pending in
the Senate.
Supporters see physician-assisted suicide as a right-to-die
issue, while opponents argue it devalues life.
Dr. Ben Rich, a bioethicist from the University of California,
Davis, spoke in favor of AB 651 and said there is a big difference
between killing someone and letting that person die.
Rich dismissed claims that AB 651 would form a "slippery
slope" that gradually would expand the circumstances under
which physician-assisted suicide would be permitted.
"It's my proposition that there's a slippery slope every
bit as steep when you're talking about withholding and withdrawing
life-sustaining treatment from patients," he said.
Dr. Nicholas Gideonse, a doctor in Oregon, which currently
allows physician-assisted suicide, said the 8-year-old law has not
been abused.
"Prolonging a life deemed unwanted by the person living it,
because of the ravages of terminal illness, demeans life," he
said.
Critics of AB 651 argue that legalizing doctor-assisted suicide
could result in terminally ill patients seeking to end their lives
because they don't want to burden family members with their
care.
Attorney Susan Penney of the California Medical Association said
the proposed safeguards in AB 651 are not foolproof because they
require subjective decisions about mental competence, undue
influence and other factors.
"How will the profession be able to monitor whether or not
the ethical or legal obligations are being met?" she said.
Wesley Smith, a Castro Valley attorney and a consultant for the
International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, cited
the Netherlands to support the slippery-slope argument.
"Indeed, since 1973 Dutch doctors have gone from killing
the terminally ill who ask for it, to the chronically ill who ask
for it, to the disabled who ask for it, to depressed people who
aren't even physically ill who ask for it," he said.
</div>
<h2>After a year in limbo, the issue still raises hackles, a Senate
committee finds.</h2>
<script type="text/javascript"> var ppt=new Date();
var ppp=new Date('Wed Jun 21 00:01:00 PDT 2006');
var ppe=new Date(ppp.getTime()+1*(86400000));
var ppv=0;
if (ppt < ppe) {
ppv=1;
}
</script>
<h3>By Jim Sanders -- Bee Capitol Bureau</h3>
Published 12:01 am PDT Wednesday, June 21, 2006 <script type="text/javascript">var ppn='Page A3';if(ppv==1){ppn='<a href="/content/print_edition/#MAIN NEWS">'+ppn+'</a>';}document.write('Story appeared on '+ppn+' of The
Bee');</script><br>
Story appeared on <a href="/content/print_edition/#MAIN NEWS">Page
A3</a> of The Bee
<p id="storyTools"><a href=
"/content/politics/v-print/story/14269990p-15080922c.html" class=
"print">Print</a> | <a href=
"/content/politics/v-email/story/14269990p-15080922c.html" class=
"email">E-Mail</a> | <a id="comments_jump" href="#comments_here"
class="comments">Comments (5)</a>
<div class="mimg"><img border="0" alt="" width="320" src=
"http://www.sacbee.com/static/rich_content_images/261354-suicide.jpg"
height="212">
Sandra Butler, who has terminal cancer, listens at a news
conference on assisted suicide as Dr. Nicholas Gideonse speaks.
<span>Sacramento Bee/Anne Chadwick Williams
<div class="clear"> </div>
</div>
<div id="storyBody" style=
" font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class=
"storytext">Legislation to make California the second state to
allow doctor-assisted suicide by terminally ill patients returned
to the spotlight Tuesday after more than a year on a Capitol shelf.
Moral and ethical questions abounded in a nearly three-hour
informational hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but one
thing was perfectly clear: The lengthy delay hasn't quieted
controversy.
Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, vowed to keep fighting
nonetheless.
"I believe in it with all my heart," she said of the
bill.
The committee is expected to vote on the measure next Tuesday. A
Senate floor vote could follow.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, in a speech Monday to the
Sacramento Press Club, said he personally supports Assembly Bill
651 but will not push his Senate Democratic Caucus to do likewise.
"This is a personal thing that everybody must decide for
him- or herself," he said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken no position on AB 651 and
typically does not do so until legislation is in its final form and
passes the Legislature.
In a January appearance at the Press Club, however,
Schwarzenegger said doctor-assisted suicide is a difficult issue
that should be decided by voters.
"I personally think that this is a decision probably that
should go to the people, like the death penalty or other big
issues," he said.
Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, who is teaming with Berg
on the bill, said it was coincidental that AB 651 resurfaced only
after ballots were cast in the June 6 primary.
But, ultimately, that might bolster prospects for the bill, he
said.
"Members are no longer locked in battle with one another,
so they may not be afraid that it's going to be used against
them," Levine said.
AB 651 would allow mentally competent patients who are not
expected to live for more than six months to obtain a prescription
for life-ending medication.
The legislation contains numerous requirements designed to
prevent a terminally ill patient from seeking life-ending
medication frivolously, impulsively or under duress.
The measure requires that two doctors agree on a patient's
prognosis, requires a 15-day waiting period, and mandates
counseling for patients who are not under hospice care.
Patients would have to administer the life-ending medication to
themselves.
Before Tuesday's hearing, Sandra Butler, a San Francisco woman
dying of lung cancer, appeared at a press conference to support the
bill.
"In the near future, I will reach the end of my days,"
she said. "It is my desire to die peacefully in the arms of my
loved ones, not in prolonged pain and agony."
Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing wrestled with two
ethical questions -- whether AB 651 would affect the value that
society places on life, and whether it would conflict with a
doctor's legal or ethical duties.
Six bioethics and medical experts, chosen by supporters and
opponents of AB 651, were invited to testify.
Doctor-assisted suicide was proposed last year in the Assembly,
but opposition prompted Berg and Levine to abandon a floor vote
there and amend their proposal into AB 651, which was pending in
the Senate.
Supporters see physician-assisted suicide as a right-to-die
issue, while opponents argue it devalues life.
Dr. Ben Rich, a bioethicist from the University of California,
Davis, spoke in favor of AB 651 and said there is a big difference
between killing someone and letting that person die.
Rich dismissed claims that AB 651 would form a "slippery
slope" that gradually would expand the circumstances under
which physician-assisted suicide would be permitted.
"It's my proposition that there's a slippery slope every
bit as steep when you're talking about withholding and withdrawing
life-sustaining treatment from patients," he said.
Dr. Nicholas Gideonse, a doctor in Oregon, which currently
allows physician-assisted suicide, said the 8-year-old law has not
been abused.
"Prolonging a life deemed unwanted by the person living it,
because of the ravages of terminal illness, demeans life," he
said.
Critics of AB 651 argue that legalizing doctor-assisted suicide
could result in terminally ill patients seeking to end their lives
because they don't want to burden family members with their
care.
Attorney Susan Penney of the California Medical Association said
the proposed safeguards in AB 651 are not foolproof because they
require subjective decisions about mental competence, undue
influence and other factors.
"How will the profession be able to monitor whether or not
the ethical or legal obligations are being met?" she said.
Wesley Smith, a Castro Valley attorney and a consultant for the
International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, cited
the Netherlands to support the slippery-slope argument.
"Indeed, since 1973 Dutch doctors have gone from killing
the terminally ill who ask for it, to the chronically ill who ask
for it, to the disabled who ask for it, to depressed people who
aren't even physically ill who ask for it," he said.
</div>