Week 27/2015 in the Death with Dignity Movement

Last week, from June 29 to July 5, 2015:

• California heated up in advance of tomorrow’s hearing on SB 128, End of Life Option Act at the Assembly Committee on Health.
• The Catholic Church stepped up the pressure on Catholic Committee members, several of whom are vaccilating on the issue (see our letter campaign).
• The Statesman Journal ran another part in the series about the end-of-life journey of our organization’s friend and long-time Death with Dignity advocate, Dr. Peter Rasmussen, MD.
• Our friends at Death with Dignity Albany keep their streak of successes going.

California

Pro and anti-Death with Dignity advocates stepped up campaigns in the run-up to the first Assembly hearing.

• “Terminally Ill Single Mom and Her Daughter Get Their Trip of a Lifetime: ‘It Was Priceless’,” People, 6/29/2015
• “Terminally Ill Single Mom Christy O’Donnell: I’m a Conservative Christian and I Support Death with Dignity,” People, 6/30/2015
• “‘End of Life Option Act’ Offers Death with Dignity for Trans Man,” Frontiers Media, 6/29/2015
• “California Mom Christy O’Donnell Fights to Die on Her Own Terms,” Yahoo Health News, 7/1/2015
• “‘Death With Dignity’ Gains Steam, Remains Divisive,” Life Matters Media, 6/29/2015
• “Physician-Assisted Suicide Backers Try to Woo Balking Latino Lawmakers,” KQED News, 7/2/2015
• “To Be or not To Be,” California State University Los Angeles – University Times, 7/2/2015
• “Assisted-suicide bill facing defeat in Sacramento,” San Francisco Chronicle, 7/3/2015
• “Mercury News editorial: United Methodist Church joins death with dignity movement,” San Jose Mercury News, 7/3/2015
• “Capitol Journal: Aid-in-dying bill will be revived,” Los Angeles Times, 7/5/2015

New York

• “Advocates plot a post-session approach to assisted suicide,” Capital New York, 6/30/2015
• ““Death with Dignity” being discussed in Colonie,” News 10-ABC, 6/30/2015
• “Death with Dignity-Albany works on aid-in-dying bill,” Times Union, 7/1/2015

Elsewhere

• Colorado: “Death with Dignity bill seeks second chance,” Alamosa News, 6/30/2015
• District of Columbia: “D.C Council committee to weigh ‘death with dignity’,” Washington Business Journal, 7/2/2015
• Tennessee: “[W]hy do we see that granting one kind of liberty must necessarily diminish others?” “Rulings show differences in our perceptions of liberty,” Tennessean, 6/29/2015

Image by Brittany Randolph.