Rather than waiting for proposed assisted suicide legislation to work through the legislative committee process earlier this year, a lawsuit asked the California Superior Court to find that patients facing the end of life have a “civil right” under the California State Constitution “to make their own decisions about their bodies.”

But a Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit saying that physician-assisted suicide should be addressed in the Legislature.

Yet that’s exactly what the lawsuit was trying to avoid. When the latest assisted suicide bill, the “End of Life Option Act” was shelved in July because Democrats could not get enough Democrat votes, many insiders thought that the bill, and issue, was dead on arrival – particularly after the… Read More

Actor Robin Williams’ suicide is considered tragic and horrific. But many of the same people who expressed horror over Williams’ suicide say legally assisted suicide is acceptable, beneficial, and even “honorable.”

Rather than waiting for recently proposed assisted suicide legislation to work through the legislative committee process, a new lawsuit filed Wednesday asks the California Superior Court to find that physicians who provide a assisted suicide prescriptions should not be subject to criminal prosecution for assisting another to “commit suicide.”

The lawsuit wants the court to declare that patients facing the end of life have a “civil right” under the California State Constitution “to make their own decisions about their bodies.”

“If the lawsuit succeeds, terminally ill Californians, like Brittany Maynard, would not have to leave the state to receive legal aid in dying,” the press statement said. Filed by Californians with cancer, physicians, and a national nonprofit disability rights advocacy group, Disability Rights Legal Center, the lawsuit is attempting to “clarify the ability of mentally competent, terminally… Read More