The newest nominee to the U-S Supreme Court does not agree with California’s law allowing doctor-assisted, end-of-life procedures. Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote a book deeply opposing what he terms “assisted suicide.”
Rich Fisher, part of the Full Circle Living and Dying Collective in Grass Valley, which advocated for the California law, says the nomination “feels like a step backward.”
“Considering it’s been such an uphill thing to educate people about, and it’s taken so many years for the California Legislature to pass this, and the struggle that it took, the idea of this all being erased is really offensive,” says Fisher.
California passed the End Of Life Option Act two years ago, becoming one of six states to let terminally ill patients get medical help dying. It’s the type of law Judge Gorsuch railed against a decade ago, in a book called “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.
Peg Sandeen, executive director of the Death With Dignity national center, argues the matter has already been decided.
"The decision has been made at the Supreme Court level that states have the power to establish death-with-dignity laws if they so choose," says Sandeen. "The idea that we have to go back and fight and defend on the same legal principles again is troubling.
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