A few months ago, we urged the state Assembly to pass the End-of-Life-Option Act, which would have allowed doctors to prescribe drugs to terminally ill people so that they could choose when to end their life. Shortly afterwards, however, the bill died and it looked like the issue was over for the year.
But during the summer session, a new bill, ABX2-15, which also allows aid-in-dying, passed both the Assembly and Senate and is now on its way to Governor Jerry Brown's desk. He needs to sign the bill. Brown has not tipped his hand as to what he will do. In his younger days, he studied to be a Jesuit priest, and has not spoken publicly about aid-in-dying legislation. The hearings before the Assembly and state Senate were emotional on both sides of the issue. People on each side made strong arguments. But on balance, we think it's important for people to make their own, informed decisions, and this legislation isn't going to dramatically increase patient deaths, or lead to high rates of assisted suicide. The Senate voted on a party-line vote of 23-14 last week; the Assembly passed it days earlier by a vote of 43-34, with three Republicans supporting the bill.
This is an issue that is not going to go away. The Legislature has tried �" and failed �" four times between 1995 and 2008 to permit aid-in-dying, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In 1992, state voters rejected a ballot measure to authorize assisted suicide.
But a lot has changed since then. Medical advances are able to prolong life for many people, and some people will not be interested in ending their life by taking medication. Those who are, however, should be afforded that right, and not be forced to relocate to another state, as former East Bay resident Brittany Maynard did last year. Maynard, who suffered from terminal brain cancer, shared her story of moving to Oregon, which has a Death with Dignity Act that was enacted in 1997.
As with the previous incarnation of the aid-in-dying bill, ABX2-5 has several safeguards that will prevent misuse, and ensure that people who want the prescription make that decision knowing the ramifications. It would require two California doctors agree that a mentally competent person has six months or less to live before a lethal dose of drugs can be prescribed. The patient would make the ultimate decision of whether to take the drug, and could not have assistance from others. Additionally, patients would need to affirm 48 hours in advance of taking the drugs that they were doing so on their own. Significantly, without additional legislation, the bill would lapse in 10 years.
We noted in our previous editorial the fact that during the height of the AIDS epidemic, many gay men probably would have opted for an end-of-life option rather than the immense suffering and pain they endured when there were no real treatment options available. The aid-in-dying bill now before the governor sets a clear protocol that patients and their doctors must follow.
Another bill for the governor
Now that the Legislature's session has ended, there is another LGBT-specific bill that Brown should sign, AB 959. This was authored by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), a straight ally. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Disparities Reduction Act would ensure that California public policy meets the needs of the LGBT communities. It would require various state agencies that provide health and human services to members of the LGBT community to collect voluntarily provided information about sexual orientation and gender identity in the regular course of collecting other types of demographic data. According to a fact sheet from Chiu's office, the bill would also require that the aggregated sexual orientation and gender identity data that act as indicators of disparities be reported to the Legislature and made publicly available.
This piece of legislation is critically needed. The state routinely collects lots of other demographic data, such as race, ethnicity, age, and disability. These data are used to develop and guide health and human services programs. Because sexual orientation and gender identity data are not collected, significant disparities exist in state programs. LGBT people face disproportionately high rates of poverty, suicide, homelessness, isolation, substance abuse, and violence, and low rates of health insurance. As the fact sheet notes, these issues are even more pronounced for youth and seniors, communities of color, and transgender and undocumented communities. Collecting voluntary data on sexual orientation and gender identity is a necessary first step to understand the extent to which our communities are experiencing disparities and whether government programs are effectively reaching LGBT folks in need of care and assistance.
Equality California, a sponsor of the legislation, has made it a priority this year to get this demographic data recorded.
Brown can extend his record of supporting pro-LGBT legislation by signing AB 959. It would be a relatively small cost to redo various state forms, and in the long term, the state and its LGBT residents will benefit.