Assisted suicide dies in Calif. legislature
Tom Strode, www.baptistpress.com
June 18, 2007

Physician-assisted suicide is dead for now in the California legislature.

Sponsors of a bill to legalize assisted suicide set aside the measure June 7 in the California Assembly as the deadline neared for legislative action this year, the Sacramento Bee reported. The bill would have enabled doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to be used by patients with less than three months to live.

With the defeat of assisted suicide in California, Oregon remains the only state to have legalized the practice.

"Everyone who respects innocent human life should be grateful that California has resisted placing lethal weapons into the hands of physicians," Randy Thomasson, president of the state's Campaign for Children and Families, said in a written release. "Depressed patients need love, family, spiritual counsel, and proven pain medication, not [to be] handed what amounts to a gun to the head."