Lawmakers To Check In On How Right-To-Die Law Is Going
Wednesday’s meeting of the Select Committee on End of Life Health Care includes testimony from Stanford Health Care’s Dr. Catherine Forest; Melissa Stern, managing director of supportive care services at Kaiser Permanente Northern California; Martha Kay Nelson, director of spiritual care at the San Mateo-based Mission Hospice & Home Care, and comments from patients and their families.
The Mercury News:
Legislative Committee To Take Up California’s Right-To-Die Law
A California legislative committee on end of life health care is reaching out to patients’ families, doctors, hospice caregivers and health care systems Wednesday morning at the state capitol to discuss their experience so far with the state’s right-to-die law that went into effect in June 2016. Signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in October 2015, the End of Life Option Act allows any mentally competent California adult, diagnosed with less than six months to live, to end their life with a lethal drug prescription from their physician. Brown’s signature concluded a 23-year effort to pass the law in a state of almost 40 million, and its implementation has been closely watched throughout the Golden State and nation. (Seipel, 1/24)
In other news from Sacramento —
NPR:
Abortion Pills: California Senate Bill Requires On-Campus Access
In California, the state Senate is considering legislation that would ensure that students at four-year public universities in California have access on campus to medication for abortions. Sen. Connie Leyva introduced the bill, SB 320, in February 2017. It would require all health centers within the University of California and California State University systems to stock the drugs prescribed for medication abortion and ready their campus health clinics to provide them by 2022. (Wilhelm, 1/23)