U-T San Diego Opinion Pieces Show Opposing Views on California’s Right-to-Die Bill
In a U-T San Diego opinion piece, Ira Byock -- a palliative-care physician and director of the Institute for Human Caring of Providence Health and Services in Torrance -- argues that California's right-to-die bill (SB 128) "would simply give doctors authority to write lethal prescriptions" instead of correcting the way providers treat patients' pain and counsel those who face the end of life. Meanwhile, in a separate U-T San Diego opinion piece, Deborah Ziegler argues that the bill protects patients' "freedom to deal with terminal illness as they determine best." Ziegler is the mother of Brittany Maynard, who had an inoperable brain tumor and died in Oregon on Nov. 1, 2014, using a lethal dose of barbiturates prescribed by her doctor. U-T San Diego.
- "Doctors Shouldn't be Ending Lives" (Byock, U-T San Diego, 5/2).
- "Prolonged Suffering No Way To Live" (Ziegler, U-T San Diego, 5/2).