Physician-assisted suicide opponents claimed a major victory June 27 as members of the California Senate Judiciary Committee rejected AB 651, the "Compassionate Choices Act," by failing to pass it on a 2-2 vote.

Senator Joseph Dunn (D-Santa Ana) and Senator Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) voted "no" while Senator Martha Escutia (D-Montebello) and Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles) voted "yes." (Bills in the Senate Judiciary Committee must have at least a one-vote margin to pass.)

Calling The Tidings from Sacramento shortly after the vote, Carol Hogan, communications director for the bishops' California Catholic Conference, said, barring an unlikely change in legislative procedures, AB 651 is officially dead.

According to Hogan, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Senator Dunn said that though he had been undecided at the beginning of the hearing, he was swayed by the opposition's argument that once assisted suicide was made legal, it would be difficult to contain.

Senator Dunn also stated his concern for the fate of the poor and elderly in California's competitive health care market. If assisted suicide were legalized, impoverished individuals might feel pressure to choose a less expensive option of legalized suicide rather than quality palliative care.

"It was a well-ordered, tense and insightful hearing," said Ned Dolejsi, director of the CCC. "We were extremely pleased with the excellent testimony of the four opposing witnesses," he added. Witnesses against AB 651 included disability-rights activist, Marilyn Goldman, who spoke from her wheelchair, California Medical Association representative, Susan Penny, and a hospice doctor and nurse.

"In testimony, it was apparent that the amended version of the bill contained a lack of definitions and some incoherent language and would have a chilling effect on palliative care," said Dolejsi.

AB 651 opponents argued recent amendments to the bill could potentially impact all end of life care. This argument was expressed at a June 20 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing by Glendale neurologist, Dr. Ilena Blicker, who said that suffering is a nebulous term which has different meanings to different patients. Blicker added that it is a doctor's responsibility to find out and treat what is driving a patient's request for assisted suicide. This may include the prescription of anti-depressants or pain medication as well as psychological/social assistance.

Anti-assisted suicide author Wesley J. Smith, also testifying June 20, stressed that legalizing euthanasia would adversely affect the weak, vulnerable, depressed and unwanted of society.

"Over time, a state sanctioned right of doctors or others to knowingly participate in the suicides or mercy killings of suffering people would lead inexorably to a broader application of hastened death and a steady erosion of the essential principle that each and every human life has equal moral value," said Smith.

According to Smith, one of the reasons why the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S., has come out unequivocally in opposition to legalizing assisted suicide is because of the "terrible problem" faced by low-income people in obtaining fair access to medical treatment. California's 7.5 million people without health insurance, he noted, amount to more than the entire population of Oregon, which implemented its Death with Dignity Act allowing physician-assisted suicide in 1997.

"All Californians need to redouble their efforts for good hospice care, good palliative care and to find ways to embrace our dying," said Dolejsi.