Oct 7, 2015 3 min read

With a few strokes of his pen earlier this week, Gov. Jerry Brown made California the fifth state to approve physician-assisted suicide, giving doctors the go-ahead, when the law takes effect sometime next year, to provide lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill people who wish to end their lives.

What is amazing to us is in 2015, there are only five states of our 50 that have taken this humane step.

Of course, physician-assisted suicide is not without its opponents, and Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, seemed to have done quite a bit of research and soul-searching before making his decision.

“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” said the governor in his signing message. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny this right to others.”

There’s a bit of a parallel to our nation’s battle over gay marriage rights, in that people who would in no way be hurt by gay marriage or forced to have one were fighting it tooth and nail. In this case, there will be no compulsory suicides. What this does do is give someone who is nearing the end of his or her life, often dealing with unrelenting pain and suffering, the ability to determine when enough is enough, and to seek professional help. No one other than the person who is dying can know at what point that time arrives. Nor should detractors be able to stand in the way of that person making the decision that is best for them.

As with gay marriage, individuals can follow the dictates of their own conscience or faith, but, because we are not a theocracy, opponents of assisted suicide nonetheless need to respect the law.

The new law attracted a rather hysterical and misguided reaction from Tim Rosales of Californians Against Assisted Suicide, whose membership includes some doctors, advocates for the disabled and some religious organizations.

“This is a dark day for California and for the Brown legacy,” Rosales told the Los Angeles Times. “As someone of wealth and access to the world’s best medical care and doctors, the governor’s background is very different than that of millions of Californians living in health-care poverty without that same access – these are the people and families potentially hurt by giving doctors the power to prescribe lethal overdoses to patients.”

If Rosales’ point is people are finding themselves in terminal conditions because of a lack of quality medical care, that’s a different issue entirely, and it should not be a reason to deny everyone the option to access a doctor’s help in ending their suffering.

It is a shame that in this day and age we are still, in the vast majority of U.S. states, forcing terminally ill people who want to end their lives to consider more conventional means of suicide.

Denying these people the opportunity to have a medically-assisted death at the time of their choosing, presumably with friends and family at their side, is simply barbaric, and we would hope Pennsylvania’s lawmakers, if they ever get around to approving a budget, will take this subject under consideration.