SACRAMENTO, Calif.,
March 25, 2015
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Compassion & Choices today
praised the Senate Health Committee for approving the End of Life
Option Act (SB 128).
The committee's approval of SB 128 followed a news conference
during which Brittany Maynard's
husband, Dan Diaz, showed videotaped
testimony Maynard recorded last October before she died. The
testimony urged state legislators in California and nationwide to pass legislation
similar to SB 128 that authorize the medical option of aid in dying
for mentally competent, terminally ill adults with six months or
less to live.
Maynard's video testimony is posted at:
www.compassionandchoices.org/what-you-can-do/in-your-state/california-press-conference-resources/
and www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi8AP_EhM94. The script of her
video testimony is posted at:
www.compassionandchoices.org/userfiles/Brittany-Maynard-Legislative-Testimony.pdf.
The video of the entire news conference is posted at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOihI4FZno.
Before the afternoon hearing to vote on the bill, hundreds of
supporters with colorful signs crowded the state Capitol to urge
lawmakers to pass the End of Life Option Act, co-authored by Senate
Majority Leader Bill Monning and
Senate Majority Whip Lois Wolk. The next hearing on the legislation
is scheduled for April 7 before the
Senate Judiciary Committee.
"The Senate Health Committee's approval of the End of Life
Option Act is a victory for Californians, who overwhelmingly
support the option of aid in dying," said Toni Broaddus, California campaign director for Compassion
& Choices. "Thanks to the compelling testimony by families
touched by this issue – including testimony recorded by
Brittany Maynard before her death –
the End of Life Option Act is one step closer to becoming law."
Maynard, who was only 29 years old when diagnosed with terminal
brain cancer, moved to Oregon to
access its death-with-dignity law because her home state of
California does not authorize aid
in dying as an end-of-life option. Only four other states –
Washington, Montana, Vermont and New
Mexico – now authorize aid in dying. These laws give
mentally competent, terminally ill adults the option to get a
doctor's prescription for medication that they can take to die
peacefully in their sleep if their suffering in their final days
becomes unbearable.
"Making aid in dying a crime creates undue hardships and
suffering for many people who are terminally ill and suffering
tremendously," Maynard said in the video, which was recorded on
Oct. 13, 2014, 19 days before she
died on Nov. 1. "It limits our
options and deprives us of our ability to control how much pain and
agony we endure before we pass. The laws in California and 45 other states [including
Washington, DC] must change to
prevent prolonged involuntary suffering for all terminally ill
Americans."
In the final weeks of her life, Maynard partnered with
Compassion & Choices to launch a campaign to make aid in dying
an open and accessible medical practice in her home state of
California and nationwide. To
date, more than five million people have visited
thewww.TheBrittanyFund.org, and more than 50,000 people have
visited www.CompassionAndChoices.org to send letters urging state
legislators to pass bills to authorize medical aid in dying for
mentally competent, terminally ill adults.
"Our bill ensures that we honor the freedom to have end-of-life
options, but with appropriate protections to prevent any abuse,"
said Senator Wolk, a member of the Senate Health Committee. "This
end-of-life decision should remain with the individual, as a matter
of personal freedom and liberty without criminalizing those who
help to honor our wishes."
Twelve days after Brittany
Maynard died on Nov. 1, the
New Jersey Assembly passed an aid-in-dying bill on Nov. 13 on a bi-partisan 41-31 vote. Since
Compassion & Choices released Brittany
Maynard's videotaped call to action to pass aid-in-dying
bills in states nationwide on what would have been her
30th birthday, Nov. 19,
lawmakers in Washington, DC, and
at least 19 states have introduced bills to authorize the medical
option of aid in dying. They include: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa,
Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New
York, Oklahoma,
Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Utah.
"Having aid in dying as an end-of-life option provided great
relief to Brittany," said Dan Diaz,
Maynard's widower, during the news conference. "It gave her peace
of mind to know that she could focus her days on
living life, rather than having to worry about dying
in a drawn-out painful manner."
During the hearing before the vote, senators heard testimony in
support of the End of Life Option Act from five witnesses. One
witness was Christy O'Donnell, a
46-year-old single mother dying from brain and lung cancer who was
inspired by Maynard to share her story.
"I don't want to die, I want to live and hold my grand babies,"
said the Los Angeles attorney and
former Los Angeles police officer.
"But terminal brain and lung cancer are killing me quickly and very
painfully."
Brittany Maynard's mother,
Debbie Ziegler, testified at the
hearing and news conference about her daughter's seizures, her
excruciating headaches and her initial hesitation to support her
daughter's decision to utilize Oregon's death-with-dignity law.
"When Brittany first spoke about considering aid in dying, I
didn't want to hear it," Ziegler said. "But as the brain cancer
spread, my beloved daughter's suffering increased, and my feelings
started to change."
Dr. Mike Turbow, an oncologist
from Palo Alto, testified at the
hearing about the thousands of dying patients he treated in hospice
and palliative care during his medical career of nearly 40
years.
"As a medical student I was taught 'Do no harm,'" he said. "In
patients with a terminal illness, the underlying disease does the
harm, not the aid-in-dying medication that offers a dying person
the medical option to end their unbearable suffering."
National and state polls consistently show the vast majority of
Americans across the demographic and political spectrum want to
maintain their right to choose their medical treatment at the end
of life.California voters support the medical option of aid in
dying by more than a 2-1 margin (64 percent vs. 24 percent).
Compassion & Choices is the nation's oldest and largest
nonprofit organization working to improve care and expand choice at
the end of life. More information is available at:
www.compassionandchoices.org
California Media Contact:
Patricia A. González-Portillo, (323) 819-0310,
pportillo@compassionandchoices.org
National Media Contact:
Sean Crowley, (202) 495-8520-c,
scrowley@compassionandchoices.org
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SOURCE Compassion & Choices