‘Right-to-Die’ Initiative Qualifies for November Ballot in California
California voters will decide in November whether terminally ill adults can have their doctors end their lives.
The so-called “right-to-die” initiative has qualified for the Nov. 3 ballot, the first initiative to do so, with backers collecting more than the 384,974 signatures necessary, Secretary of State March Fong Eu said Thursday.
The initiative would allow doctors to assist terminally ill patients in ending their lives in a “painless, humane and dignified manner” with the signed, witnessed consent of the patient.
California law allows doctors, with approval of the patient or next of kin, to disconnect life-support systems for the terminally ill, but do no more to assist death. No state allows physician-assisted deaths.
The initiative is sponsored by Robert Risley of Los Angeles, founder of Californians Against Human Suffering. At a news conference last fall, Risley was backed by Bertram (Robert) Harper of Loomis, Calif., who was acquitted a year ago in Michigan of murder charges filed when he helped his terminally ill wife, Virginia, kill herself.
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