Large hospital opts out of California assisted-suicide law
Corrected: A California hospital may opt out of the state’s End of Life Option Act, which allows medical professionals there to assist qualified terminally ill patients with suicide.
The law, similar to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, goes into effect June 9, the Los Angeles Times reports. It lets physicians prescribe medication that makes death come more quickly for terminally ill patients who have six months or less to live. The law requires that patients be able to give themselves the medicine.
Medical leaders at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena voted in favor of the opt-out, according to the article. If its board of directors approve the amendment later this month, it will be one of the largest nonreligious affiliated medical providers to not offer suitable patients assisted suicides.
Other California medical providers—including Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health and UCLA— told the Los Angeles Times that they would comply with the law. Individual doctors at those facilities have the right to not participate, as the legislation requires.
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law in October, making it the fourth state to enact such a law. Washington and Vermont also have assisted-suicide laws in place; it is legal in Montana by way of a state supreme court decision. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 dismissed the Justice Department’s attempt to block the Oregon law, but still the practice has not become widespread.
Updated May 23 to clarify that Montana does not have an assisted-suicide law.
