California Senate Health Committee Approves Aid-in-Dying Legislation

SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 25, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Compassion & Choices today praised the Senate Health Committee for approving the End of Life Option Act (SB 128).

The committee's approval of SB 128 followed a news conference during which Brittany Maynard's husband, Dan Diaz, showed videotaped testimony Maynard recorded last October before she died. The testimony urged state legislators in California and nationwide to pass legislation similar to SB 128 that authorize the medical option of aid in dying for mentally competent, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live.

Maynard's video testimony is posted at: www.compassionandchoices.org/what-you-can-do/in-your-state/california-press-conference-resources/ and www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi8AP_EhM94.  The script of her video testimony is posted at: www.compassionandchoices.org/userfiles/Brittany-Maynard-Legislative-Testimony.pdf. The video of the entire news conference is posted at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOihI4FZno.

Before the afternoon hearing to vote on the bill, hundreds of supporters with colorful signs crowded the state Capitol to urge lawmakers to pass the End of Life Option Act, co-authored by Senate Majority Leader Bill Monning and Senate Majority Whip Lois Wolk. The next hearing on the legislation is scheduled for April 7 before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The Senate Health Committee's approval of the End of Life Option Act is a victory for Californians, who overwhelmingly support the option of aid in dying," said Toni Broaddus, California campaign director for Compassion & Choices. "Thanks to the compelling testimony by families touched by this issue – including testimony recorded by Brittany Maynard before her death – the End of Life Option Act is one step closer to becoming law."

Maynard, who was only 29 years old when diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, moved to Oregon to access its death-with-dignity law because her home state of California does not authorize aid in dying as an end-of-life option.  Only four other states – Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico – now authorize aid in dying. These laws give mentally competent, terminally ill adults the option to get a doctor's prescription for medication that they can take to die peacefully in their sleep if their suffering in their final days becomes unbearable.

"Making aid in dying a crime creates undue hardships and suffering for many people who are terminally ill and suffering tremendously," Maynard said in the video, which was recorded on Oct. 13, 2014, 19 days before she died on Nov. 1.  "It limits our options and deprives us of our ability to control how much pain and agony we endure before we pass. The laws in California and 45 other states [including Washington, DC] must change to prevent prolonged involuntary suffering for all terminally ill Americans."

In the final weeks of her life, Maynard partnered with Compassion & Choices to launch a campaign to make aid in dying an open and accessible medical practice in her home state of California and nationwide. To date, more than five million people have visited thewww.TheBrittanyFund.org, and more than 50,000 people have visited www.CompassionAndChoices.org to send letters urging state legislators to pass bills to authorize medical aid in dying for mentally competent, terminally ill adults.

"Our bill ensures that we honor the freedom to have end-of-life options, but with appropriate protections to prevent any abuse," said Senator Wolk, a member of the Senate Health Committee. "This end-of-life decision should remain with the individual, as a matter of personal freedom and liberty without criminalizing those who help to honor our wishes."

Twelve days after Brittany Maynard died on Nov. 1, the New Jersey Assembly passed an aid-in-dying bill on Nov. 13 on a bi-partisan 41-31 vote. Since Compassion & Choices released Brittany Maynard's videotaped call to action to pass aid-in-dying bills in states nationwide on what would have been her 30^th birthday, Nov. 19, lawmakers in Washington, DC, and at least 19 states have introduced bills to authorize the medical option of aid in dying. They include: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Utah.  

"Having aid in dying as an end-of-life option provided great relief to Brittany," said Dan Diaz, Maynard's widower, during the news conference. "It gave her peace of mind to know that she could focus her days on living life, rather than having to worry about dying in a drawn-out painful manner."

During the hearing before the vote, senators heard testimony in support of the End of Life Option Act from five witnesses. One witness was Christy O'Donnell, a 46-year-old single mother dying from brain and lung cancer who was inspired by Maynard to share her story.

"I don't want to die, I want to live and hold my grand babies," said the Los Angeles attorney and former Los Angeles police officer. "But terminal brain and lung cancer are killing me quickly and very painfully."

Brittany Maynard's mother, Debbie Ziegler, testified at the hearing and news conference about her daughter's seizures, her excruciating headaches and her initial hesitation to support her daughter's decision to utilize Oregon's death-with-dignity law.

"When Brittany first spoke about considering aid in dying, I didn't want to hear it," Ziegler said. "But as the brain cancer spread, my beloved daughter's suffering increased, and my feelings started to change."

Dr. Mike Turbow, an oncologist from Palo Alto, testified at the hearing about the thousands of dying patients he treated in hospice and palliative care during his medical career of nearly 40 years.

"As a medical student I was taught 'Do no harm,'" he said. "In patients with a terminal illness, the underlying disease does the harm, not the aid-in-dying medication that offers a dying person the medical option to end their unbearable suffering."

National and state polls consistently show the vast majority of Americans across the demographic and political spectrum want to maintain their right to choose their medical treatment at the end of life.California voters support the medical option of aid in dying by more than a 2-1 margin (64 percent vs. 24 percent).

Compassion & Choices is the nation's oldest and largest nonprofit organization working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life. More information is available at: www.compassionandchoices.org

California Media Contact:
Patricia A. González-Portillo, (323) 819-0310, [email protected]

National Media Contact:
Sean Crowley, (202) 495-8520-c, [email protected] 

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SOURCE Compassion & Choices

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