The California End of Life Option Act went into effect on June 9, 2016. This compassionate option allows for an eligible terminally ill adult, with a prognosis of six months or less to live, to request and receive a prescription form their doctor that they can self-ingest to peacefully end their suffering.
An improvement bill, SB 380, took effect in 2022. The Department of Public Health’s annual data report showed there was a 47% increase in Californians who used the law in 2022, increasing access to the law exactly as intended.
We will continue to work on reauthorizing this law, removing the sunset provision, and reducing barriers to access while ensuring safeguards remain intact.
The CDSS issued a notice to adult and senior care facilities about the End of Life Option Act. Residents who qualify for medical aid in dying living in assisted facilities and other adult or senior care facilities are able to take their medication in their home and can’t be evicted for choosing this option.
Joan Stucker joined the fight for end-of-life options before the California legislative campaign picked up steam in 2014. She helped start a program called Friends of Compassion & Choices, which grew to include an email tree of over 600 people and accelerated volunteerism in the campaign. She and other Coachella Valley Action Team volunteers made…
The following article appeared in the SGIM Forum: 2017 In August 2016, I met a retired physician in his 80s who was dying of prostate cancer that peppered his entire skeleton, compressing his spinal cord. He had just been discharged from the hospital to the skilled nursing facility, part of the senior community where he…
(Los Angeles, CA – 21 de Marzo de 2017) El Concejo Municipal de Los Ángeles otorgó hoy al actor mexicano Mauricio Ochmann un certificado de Honor como agradecimiento por su trabajo en beneficio de la aprobación de la ley “Opción al Final de la Vida” de California, que entró en vigor en junio del año…
(Los Angeles, CA – March 21, 2017) The Los Angeles City Council today honored Mexican actor Mauricio Ochmann with a certificate of honor to thank him for his work to help pass the End of Life Option Act in California that took effect last June. The law gives mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six…
The following blog appeared on The Jewish News of Northern California A close friend passed away recently — no doubt among the first people to take advantage of California’s End of Life Option Act. Signed into law in 2015 and in effect as of June 9, 2016, the law gives terminally ill adults who have…
Environmentalist, internationalist and Californian by way of Germany, longtime Compassion & Choices supporter Ray Perman recently joined our storytelling program to share his experiences with terminal cancer and accessing California’s medical aid in dying law. Having been raised between Germany and the United States, Europeans’ more progressive attitudes around end-of-life care was part of Perman’s…
Jill Lloyd of Irvine, California, has been a hospice volunteer for 35 years and also works as a part-time funeral director and celebrant – a surprising path considering she essentially grew up without death. “I was raised in Christian Science, so people don’t ‘die,’ and you don’t go to doctors,” explains Jill. “My mom died…
Actively supporting the movement for end-of-life options since the campaign to authorize medical aid in dying in California last year, Matt Fairchild feels calmer knowing he has a more peaceful way out should it come to that – one that he helped pass. “It gives me so much peace of mind,” he says. “I don’t…
(Riverside, CA – Aug. 26, 2016) Compassion & Choices praised a Riverside Superior Court decision today to reject a preliminary injunction motion that was filed to suspend the state’s new medical aid-in-dying law, the California End of Life Option Act. However, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Ottolia allowed the suit by the Life…
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