WHEN California’s lawmakers passed a bill in September that legalised doctor-assisted dying, there were doubts it would ever become law. Between success and the statute book stood a possible veto by the state governor, Jerry Brown. Mr Brown is a pious Catholic—and the strongest opposition to assisted dying has come from the Catholic church. But Mr Brown had also spoken to Brittany Maynard, a young Californian whose diagnosis of terminal brain cancer had turned her into an advocate for the cause. In 2014 she moved to Oregon, the first state to legalise assisted dying, and took her own life there. Ms Maynard’s story, and a moving video she made asking California’s lawmakers to pass something similar to Oregon’s Death with Dignity law, transformed the debate in her home state and beyond.
Now the uncertainty is at an end. On October 5th Mr Brown signed the bill—a strong expression of his support, since it could have passed into law if he had merely declined to veto it. Next year California will join Oregon, Vermont, Washington state and Montana in allowing doctors, with appropriate safeguards, to prescribe drugs that terminally ill patients can use to end their own...Continue reading
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