‘Right-to-Die’ Resolution OKd by Bar Group

The State Bar’s Conference of Delegates narrowly adopted a “right-to-die” resolution Sunday that advocates giving doctors permission to help terminally ill patients end their lives.

Resolutions passed by the delegates from voluntary Bar associations throughout the state have no force but sometimes are proposed to state legislators by the 24-member State Bar Board of Governors, which governs the state’s 105,000 lawyers.

The “right-to-die” resolution, passed by a vote of 282 to 239, was proposed by the Beverly Hills Bar Assn. at the conference’s annual session, which continues through today at the Century Plaza.

The resolution advocates changing the state’s Natural Death Act to a “dignified death act” and permitting patients to seek a doctor’s help in dying if:

- Two physicians certify that the patient will die of his illness within six months.

- A psychiatrist determines that the patient is mentally competent to make the decision to end his life.

- The patient makes his request in writing.

- The patient waits 10 days to make sure he does not want to change his mind.

Even if the patient meets all of these criteria, a physician can decline to carry out the patient’s wishes if he has strong convictions against aiding death.

Current law allows an alert patient to forgo life-support systems and, under certain conditions, to have life-support systems removed. But it does not permit hastening death with the help of a physician.

Many Denounce Plan

Many of the lawyers denounced the proposal as “legalized intentional killing” and said it could lead to mandatory euthanasia for elderly, disabled or poor people.

But Barry Shanley, who championed the resolution for the Beverly Hills group, said the proposal would merely codify and regulate a practice “as it has developed in the Netherlands and as it has been carried out sub rosa in California.”

Advocates said that wealthy people with close relationships to their physicians can quietly, if illegally, request lethal doses of medicine but that poorer people who have little medical care must suffer painful and slow deaths.

Jerry Falk, of the supporting Bar Assn. of San Francisco, said the proposal would simply “add thoughtfully crafted safeguards” to a covert current practice. He said the concept shows respect for the patient by enabling him to decide the timing of his imminent death, and respect for the physician by authorizing him to refuse the request.

Matthew S. (Sandy) Rae Jr. said the state’s largest voluntary lawyers’ club, the 19,000-member Los Angeles County Bar Assn., firmly opposed the resolution, which he called “legalization of physician-assisted suicide.”

In other action Sunday, the delegates struck back at the State Bar Board of Governors by loudly demanding in a voice vote that a simple majority--not a two-thirds majority--should decide what controversial topics they will discuss.

However, the Board of Governors is not obligated to respond to the delegates’ demand, and even if the governors did, the requirement of a two-thirds majority would remain in effect at this conference.

P. Terry Anderlini, who was sworn in as president of the State Bar, had cautioned that reducing the requirement to a simple majority would mean trouble with the Legislature, which in the past has been angered by Bar discussions of issues such as the U.S. presence in Nicaragua.

But Carol Slater Frederick said the two-thirds majority requirement could be used to censor measures “legitimately within the rules but outside someone’s comfort zone.”