Action on ‘Right to Die’ Languishes in California

It has been five years since California helped fan the debate over letting doctors hasten death for the terminally ill. But despite the high amount of attention the issue has received in the state, supporters of a “right to die” concede that for now, they have little chance to win their battle legislatively.

“I’m 66 years old now, and I’m down to saying I hope legalization will come in my lifetime,” said John Brooke, president of Americans for Death with Dignity. “I don’t think this issue is going to be settled any time soon.”

Thursday’s Supreme Court decision essentially returns the issue of doctor-assisted suicide to the states and the political process.

Advocates on both sides of the issue say the decision will almost certainly prolong the battle over one of society’s most vexing moral dilemmas.

Foes of assisted suicide applauded the court’s decision, suggesting that it was a devastating blow to the movement in the Golden State.

“It sets the proponents back years,” said Chuck Cavalier, a Sacramento political consultant who marshaled the 1992 defeat of Proposition 161, a statewide ballot measure that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide.

“I would be very surprised to see a measure passed in California.”

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Even before the Supreme Court acted, state lawmakers have displayed a icy reluctance to take on the issue. Proponents say the reluctance is due to money and political power.

California has among the nation’s largest and best organized community of AIDS activists, who have often been in the forefront of the arguments over assisted suicide. But despite that, supporters of assisted suicide have been routinely outgunned in statewide debates over the issue.

The advocates for assisted suicide, ranging from AIDS patients to members of the Hemlock Society, “don’t talk with a united voice” and would be hard-pressed to mount a campaign for another statewide initiative, said Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-Novato), who authored a bill in 1995 to allow assisted suicide in California.

By contrast, the opposition, led by the Catholic Church and the California Medical Society, has been highly effective in advocating its position.

“People felt that the CMA and Catholic Church were the reason Proposition 161 was defeated,” Mazzoni said. “And they hold sway here in the Capitol as well. This is going to be something that’s very difficult to accomplish legislatively.”

Proposition 161 was defeated after foes spent more than $2.8 million on a hard-hitting campaign backed by the CMA and the church. The measure’s backers spent one-tenth that amount and saw public opinion swing from 75% favoring the initiative in some preelection polls to an election-day defeat of 54% to 46%.

Those same forces are revered by many lawmakers in the Capitol. So when Mazzoni introduced one of a pair of assisted-suicide bills in 1995, neither one got out of the first committee.

While an initiative campaign would be difficult for supporters of assisted suicide to win, a legislative fight might be even harder, analysts say. The current makeup of the Legislature, with a Republican caucus that is almost uniformly conservative and an increasing number of moderate Democrats, undercuts the chances of legislation on the issue even further, Mazzoni said.

The closest thing to the issue in Sacramento this year is a measure by Assemblywoman Carol Migden, a San Francisco Democrat, that calls on the state to draw together information on pain management for the terminally ill. Migden, whose community includes a large concentration of AIDS patients, said she is “not quite sure what I believe” on euthanasia for the dying, but she believes that her bill can be a jumping-off point for continued debate.

“I want to tone down the debate and begin in earnest and evenhanded, open and honest discussion,” she said. “I’m convinced if we find a way to manage pain, we might find fewer and fewer circumstances where people try to terminate life.”

As for legislation directly addressing assisted suicide, some lawmakers say it can only come in the narrowest of contexts.

“I think it’s possible to craft a bill where it would be allowed in the most exceedingly narrow of circumstances,” said Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys). “But from a political standpoint, as we saw with Proposition 161, it’s a difficult issue to address.”

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Even staunch advocates like Brooke, whose group pushed Proposition 161 and supported a similar law passed by Oregon voters in 1994, offer only guarded optimism about a fight they expect to wage for years to come.

“The ability of the folks who oppose this to generate large amounts of money to broadcast their arguments is so great that we’re left on an uneven playing field,” Brooke said. “We can’t match them financially.”

He also said there “certainly will be no legislation this year or possibly next year given the current climate,” but he expressed faith that “there will come a time when the dust settles that we will reach a critical mass and the Legislature will act.”