The Washington Post has a report on the legal obstacles that may prevent terminally ill Californians who successfully fought to gain the right to die from having a chance to exercise that right.

California’s End of Life Option Act became law on September 11 of this year, and Governor Jerry Brown issued a thoughtful, human signing statement:

ABx2 is not an ordinary bill because it deals with life and death. The crux of the matter is whether the State of California should continue to make it a crime for a dying person to end his life, no matter how great his pain or suffering.

I have carefully read the thoughtful opposition materials presented by a number of doctors, religious leaders and those who champion disability rights. I have considered the theological and religious perspectives that any deliberate shortening of one’s life is sinful.

I have also read the letters of those who support the bill, including heartfelt pleas from Brittany Maynard’s family and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In addition, I have discussed this matter with a Catholic Bishop, two of my own doctors and former classmates and friends who take varied, contradictory and nuanced positions.

In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death.

I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I won’t deny that right to others.

The issue, now, is that the bill will not take effect until April 2016, by which time many terminal ill patients who campaigned for the right to end their own lives peacefully and painlessly will, instead, have died of their respective conditions in various states of agony or discomfort.

And that assumes the bill is allowed to take effect as intended. Opponents of the law are reportedly already planning to gather signatures to force a ballot measure to repeal the law next fall. Such a measure could leave California’s terminally ill in a state of limbo for at least another year, reports the Post. The Act requires a six-month prognosis in order for patients to qualify for prescription life-ending drugs, so a year-long wait is simply a death sentence of a vastly harsher sort.

The law was passed in a special session of California’s assembly, and laws passed under such circumstances cannot take effect until 91 days after the end of the session, set for January. Opponents can force a referendum by gathering enough signatures before then, at which point the law will be put on hold until at least November 2016. Virtually no patients who would have qualified for end-of-life assistance at the time of the bill’s passage in September will be alive to exercise the options it affords by then.

[Washington Post]

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