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.
Compassion & Choices Action Network is proud to share that, due to our advocacy and the leadership of Senator Catherine Blakespear and other legislative champions, SB 403, the bill to make the End of Life Option Act permanent, has been signed into law on October 3, 2025, by Governor Gavin Newsom. We are so pleased that in times of great uncertainty, we have worked alongside champions and partners to ensure that everyone in the Golden State will continue to have access to the End of Life Option Act in perpetuity.
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.
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…
We are thrilled to announce that today a Riverside Superior Court ruled that the new medical aid-in-dying law in California can continue to give terminally ill, mentally capable people with a prognosis of six months or less another end-of-life option. Compassion & Choices was the only advocacy group to weigh in on an effort to…
A California Superior Court today accepted a friend-of-the court brief filed by Compassion & Choices urging the court to reject a request for a preliminary injunction to stop implementation of the state’s new medical aid-in-dying law. The End of Life Option Act gives terminally ill adults the option to request a doctor’s prescription for medication…
Nancy Jacobsen of San Francisco, California, didn’t give much thought to her own mortality until she was first diagnosed with cancer in 2004. She recovered after surgery and radiation treatments, but the cancer returned 10 years later, shortly before she first heard of Compassion & Choices: “It was either online or because I picked up…
Medical aid in dying is now available to terminally ill adults in California, as the End of Life Option Act took effect June 9. Compassion & Choices led the strategic yearlong campaign to pass the law. And the organization initiated its California Access Campaign in January – even prior to the law’s effective date —…
Thanks to California’s End of Life Option Act law taking effect today, terminally ill adults in California with less than six months to live finally have the option to ask their doctor for prescription medication they can decide to take, so they can die peacefully in their sleep, if their suffering becomes unbearable. The process…
The California End of Life Option Act takes effect today, authorizing 12 percent of terminally ill adults nationwide to have the option to request medical aid in dying if their suffering becomes intolerable. The other states that previously authorized medical aid in dying – Oregon (1997), Washington (2008), Montana (2009) and Vermont (2013) – comprise…
The California End of Life Option Act takes effect June 9, authorizing 12 percent of terminally ill adults nationwide to have the option to request medical aid in dying if their suffering becomes intolerable. The other states that previously authorized medical aid in dying – Oregon (1997), Washington (2008), Montana (2009) and Vermont (2013) –…
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