Assisted-Suicide Bill Elicits Commentary
The Los Angeles Times on Thursday featured an editorial and opinion piece addressing recent action on AB 374, which would permit physicians to write prescriptions for life-ending doses of medications for patients with terminal illnesses under some circumstances. Summaries appear below.
- Los Angeles Times: Examining the text of the bill and Oregon's experience with its own assisted-suicide law -- the model for the California bill -- should ease some opponents' concerns that the bill would be used to pressure patients with terminal illnesses to end their lives because of the cost of treatment, a Times editorial states. "[G]iving people the power to end their lives does not impinge on those who would reject that power for themselves," the editorial states (Los Angeles Times, 4/5).
- George Skelton, Los Angeles Times: Cardinal Roger Mahony's recent criticism of Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez's support for the bill shows "a collision of church and state, both of which serve society best ... when they operate separately," Skelton writes in his "Capitol Journal" column in the Times (Skelton, Los Angeles Times, 4/5).