[JURIST] The California State Legislature [official website] on Friday approved the End of Life Option Act [ABX2-15] by a vote of 23-14. The measure would allow doctors to provide terminally ill patients with and aid-in-dying drug that a patient takes with the purpose of ending his or her own life. The bill now proceeds to the office of California Governor Jerry Brown [official profile] for final approval. Under the legislation, doctors would have to consult with patients in private to ensure the individual is not being coerced into ending their own life. Experts caution that the bill may lead to situations where lower-income individuals seek out assisted-suicide as an alternative [NYT report] to dealing with expensive medical care or treatments. National legal support includes the Death With Dignity National Center [NGO website], and supporters of the bill argue its approval in California could mark a change in the national viewpoint towards the aid-in-dying or death with dignity movement [JURIST op-ed]. If Brown takes no action on the bill, it will become law [NPR report] 30 days from Friday.

The aid-in-dying movement has garnered substantial legal debate around the US and internationally over the past few years, especially in California. Three US states currently have legislation that allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to some patients: Oregon, Washington and Vermont. In Montana the state’s highest court has ruled that assisted suicide is not explicitly banned [JURIST report] by state law or public policy, meaning consent could be raised as a defense in a potential prosecution of a physician. According to the death with dignity national center, more than half the states, plus Washington, DC, have introduced legislation in 2015 to legalize some version of assisted-suicide. In July California lawmakers ended a previous legislative effort [JURIST report] to enact such legislation, as the former right-to-die bill had been amended several times over the previous year. The law became hotly debated when 29-year-old Brittany Maynard [CNN backgrounder] moved from San Francisco to Oregon, which allows physician-assisted suicide, so that she could die on her own terms after being diagnosed with brain cancer. In June the European Court of Human Rights upheld [JURIST report] a French court’s decision allowing Vincent Lambert the right to die, stating it did not violate article 2 of European Convention on Human Rights. In May a Dutch court acquitted [JURIST report] a man of all criminal charges for assisting his 99-year-old mother in committing suicide. Also that month, an 84-year old attorney, businessman and political candidate filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in a court in Tennessee, challenging a law that makes it a felony for a doctor or another person to help someone commit suicide.