April
2006
Support Compassionate Choices in California
We were all relieved when the U.S. Supreme Court decisively turned back the effort initiated by former Attorney General John Ashcroft to crush Oregon’s pioneering death-with-dignity legislation. This means that the way is open for California—a vastly larger state—to enact a bill modeled on Oregon’s law: the California Compassionate Choices Act, which now carries bill number AB 651. Action in both houses of the California Legislature is expected this summer.
Needless to say, the Religious Right is working overtime todemonize the California bill and pressure legislators not to sign on in support of it. This makes it urgent for progressive people of faith—clergypersons in particular—to come out strongly in support of the principle that physicians should be allowed to assist in the deaths of individuals whose quality of life has deteriorated past the point of endurance and who choose freely to make a dignified exit. The proposed California law, like Oregon’s, has plenty of safeguards built in to ensure that the option of physician-assisted dying is not abused—not by greedy or callous family members, not by doctors, not by anyone.
You can learn more by visiting www.physicianaidindying.com, a special website created by Rev. John Brooke, who has been organizing religious support for the measure within his own United Church of Christ and also within other bodies. Click the link to “California clergy” on the site to see the names of the clergy who have already endorsed the measure. If you are able to support it, please indicate your support in an e-mail to: .
We also recommend that you try to organize a discussion of this challenging topic in your adult learners’ group. The new web site has some resources that can help you structure such discussions. This is unfamiliar territory to most of us, and it is best by far to traverse it in conversation and in community.