(Sacramento, CA) Compassion & Choices Action Network today applauded the California State Assembly Appropriations Committee for passing Senate Bill 380, with amendments, by a vote of 12-4.  SB 380, co-authored by Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) and Assemblymember Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa), would improve access to the  End of Life Option Act. The bill, which the Senate passed by a 26-8 vote in May, now moves to the Assembly floor.

The End of Life Option Act, first implemented in June 2016, gives mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live the option to request a prescription for medication, which they can decide to take to peacefully end unbearable suffering. The legislation included a sunset clause and is set to expire at the end of 2025 unless new legislation is passed. Amendments that would have eliminated the sunset clause were removed in the Appropriations Committee and, instead, the statute’s sunset would be extended to January 2031.

“We applaud the Assembly Appropriations Committee for taking the necessary step of helping to improve the End of Life Option Act,” said Kim Callinan, president/CEO of the Compassion & Choices Action Network. “While we are disappointed that Act’s sunset law was extended rather than eliminated, with only the Assembly Floor vote remaining, we are now one compassionate step closer towards bringing peace of mind to many terminally ill Californians and their families.”

SB 380 would remove regulatory roadblocks to accessing the End of Life Option Act that currently impede or prevent hundreds of qualified terminally ill adult Californians from using medical aid-in-dying to peacefully end their suffering.  It would make several important improvements to the End of Life Option Act, including:

• Reduce the mandatory minimum 15-day waiting period between the two oral requests for aid-in-dying medication to 48 hours for all eligible patients. (In April, New Mexico’s governor signed a similar medical aid-in-dying law passed by the state legislature in March that requires a 48-hour waiting period between the time the prescription is written and when it is filled.)
• Healthcare systems and hospices would have to post their medical aid-in-dying policies on their websites, increasing transparency for terminally ill patients who need prompt access to this information.

A recent report on California’s law that allows mentally capable, terminally ill adults to use medical aid in dying to peacefully end their suffering shows that slightly fewer people used the law in 2020 compared to 2019, showing the need to improve access to the law by passing SB 380.

For more information about SB 380, Click HERE.

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ABOUT COMPASSION & CHOICES ACTION NETWORK/COMPASSION & CHOICES

Compassion & Choices is comprised of two organizations that improve care and expand options at life’s end: Compassion & Choices (501(c)(3)) educates, empowers, defends, and advocates; the Compassion & Choices Action Network (501(c)(4)) focuses exclusively on legislation, ballot campaigns, and limited electoral work.

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