Service to help in suicide
Steve Geissinger, Media News Group / San Jose Mercury News / Oakland Tribune
September 18, 2007

SACRAMENTO -- Physician-assisted suicide advocates -- unable to pass legislation and short on cash to push a statewide ballot initiative -- will announce today the creation of a consultation service to offer information to the terminally ill and even provide volunteers for those who would like someone to be present when committing suicide.

"Volunteers will neither provide nor administer the means for aid in dying," said The Rev. John Brooke, a United Church of Christ minister from Cotati and one of the organizers of the new End of Life Consultation Service. "We will not break or defy the law."

But Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families, part of an opposition coalition, said it sounded like formation of "California death squads" to him.

Thomasson, pointing to laws against suicide, called for an investigation by authorities once the consultation service begins.

Representatives of the new End of Life Consultation Service say they will advise the terminally ill on how to better access pain treatment and end-of-life care. Clergy and trained volunteer counselors also will advise the terminally ill against violent suicide, instead helping identify a path to a peaceful death.

A counselor will remain present to comfort a terminally ill person taking their own life, if that person wishes, program representatives said.

Advocates will hold press conferences today in San Francisco and Los Angeles to unveil the program.

Nancy Kelem of Los Altos, a mother of three children who has cancer, is among those scheduled to speak at the Bay Area press conference.

"My concerns regarding dying are my wish to protect my kids from witnessing horrors," Kelem said in a statement. "I don't want them to hear me scream. So I do need aid in overcoming the ravages of this disease at the end of life.

"Until our lawmakers can summon their own courage and pass a law providing physician aid in dying, this service is critical for patients like myself."

Though polls indicate heavy support for an assisted suicide law in California, legislative efforts continue to stall.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, was forced to shelve a proposed law before the end of this year's legislative session, after failing to attract enough support from dominant Democrats on the emotional issue.

AB 374 would have allowed a California adult, diagnosed with less than three months to live, to get a lethal prescription after clearing several complex hurdles.

Núñez, a Catholic who was criticized by the Catholic Church, cited opposition from the religious right but the morally volatile issue also has divided seniors, physicians and others.

The measure, modeled after an Oregon law, is eligible to be taken up next year. But bill authors, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, and Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, have expressed little interest in a 2008 election-year attempt at passage.

"It sounds like on the heels of their legislative defeat, they are just redirecting their efforts that began with the Hemlock Society," said Ned Dolejsi of the California Catholic Conference, one of the groups that make up the Californians Against Assisted Suicide coalition.

Coalition members not only oppose assisted suicide on ethical grounds but are also concerned that it might put pressure on terminally ill patients who are poor and uninsured and do not want to financially burden relatives.