A girl, who is a cancer patient, embraces her mother after a march to observe the international day of the fight against childhood cancer in Managua, Feb. 14, 2015. (Photo : REUTERS)
The California Senate Health Committee has approved a bill, the End-of-Life Option Act (SB 128), authorizing the medical option of aid in dying.
The approval makes the bill is one step closer to becoming law, according to Toni Broaddus, the campaign director for Compassion & Choices for California.
Medical aid in dying got much needed boost after videotaped testimonies from Brittany Maynard urging passage of such bills nationwide was circulated through the Internet.
Lawmakers in at least 17 American states from California to New York have filed bills to authorize the medical option of aid in dying, having been inspired by the advocacy of the late terminal brain cancer patient Brittany Maynard.
This legislation would allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults the option to request a doctor's prescription for aid-in-dying medication if their suffering becomes unbearable.
Maynard, who was 29 years when diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, had to move to Oregon to avail a law on medical aid in dying since her home state of California does not authorize it.
"It limits our options and deprives us of our ability to control how much pain and agony we endure before we pass," Maynard said about making aid in dying a crime in a video recorded 19 days before her passing on Nov. 1.
Those who go through the process of obtaining the medication in Oregon hold onto it for weeks or months, before availing it, if they avail it at all.
In fact, more than one-third never take it, according to the Oregon Public Health Department.
But having the option gives dying patients great comfort knowing they could end their suffering once it becomes unbearable.
The largest public health association in the United States, the American Public Health Association, supports aid in dying.
It recognizes that the terms "suicide" or "assisted suicide" are inappropriate when discussing the procedure to help those who are immensely suffering while facing death.
In fact, the five American states that authorize medical aid in dying--Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, Washington and Vermont--prohibit assisted suicide.
