Group Authors Amicus Brief Arguing the Law Does Not Discriminate Against People with Disabilities

National end-of-life rights organization Compassion & Choices Tuesday filed an amicus brief in a case challenging California’s medical aid in dying law. A federal court in March already dismissed the lawsuit, brought by plaintiffs who claim the law discriminates against people with disabilities. The plaintiffs are appealing that decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The California End of Life Option Act (EOLOA)  promotes the autonomy, self-determination, and dignity of people with disabilities…(c)oncepts that lie at the core of the disability rights movement,” the nonprofit organization wrote in its brief. “[Providing] individuals with disabilities with the option to seek medical aid in dying through the EOLOA fundamentally respects their autonomy and allows them to determine the trajectory of their final days.”

“A disability alone does not make someone eligible for medical aid in dying, and the EOLOA aligns with the disability rights community’s goal of bodily autonomy and the right to self-determination at all stages of life, including for those living with a terminal diagnosis,” said Compassion & Choices senior staff attorney Jess Pezley.  “We will do everything possible to ensure the law remains in effect on behalf of the 75% of Californians, and 79% of voters nationwide with disabilities, who want to direct their care and decide what happens to their bodies.”

“The court made the right decision to dismiss this misguided case in March, ensuring the full range of end-of-life healthcare options in California remains,” said John Kappos, a partner in the O’Melveny & Myers law firm, co-counsel in the amicus brief. “The plaintiffs’ arguments are still incorrect. The EOLOA expands options for all dying people, whether they wish to use medical aid in dying or not. We should allow people with disabilities to make decisions about their own end of life journeys, and respect that they have the capacity to do so.”

In the brief, Compassion & Choices argues that the plaintiffs’ original lawsuit and current appeal do not represent the majority of people living with disabilities, that people opposed to medical aid in dying have the choice to reject it, and that numerous safeguards are built into California’s law to protect that choice.

Compassion & Choices also points out in the brief that California’s End of Life Option Act (EOLOA) requires eligible patients to be informed of other care options and resources available to them, such as palliative care and hospice, and that these options were simultaneously utilized by an overwhelming, near 94% of people who self-ingested aid-in-dying medications in 2023.

The organization further argues that the plaintiffs’ claim of discrimination, if true, would apply to other end-of-life options, like the refusal of life-sustaining treatment, access to palliative sedation, and the choice to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED). None of these options have been included in the plaintiffs’ lawsuit or appeal, they say, and none include the safeguards of the EOLOA.

Compassion & Choices Action Network (Compassion & Choices’ sister advocacy organization which sponsored the EOLOA), alongside three Californians with disabilities and two California doctors, filed a Motion to Intervene in the original lawsuit in September 2023, which was denied by the court since it was rendered moot by the dismissal of the case. After the plaintiffs appealed the dismissal, the proposed intervenors filed their own appeal, challenging the lower court’s dismissal of their Motion to Intervene. The court’s decision on this appeal is still pending.

The proposed intervenors in this appeal are:

• Burt Bassler, an 88-year-old Pleasanton resident with progressive cardiac amylodosis, or stiff heart syndrome.
• Judith Coburn, a 80-year-old Berkeley resident who was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of ovarian cancer in 2019.
• Peter Sussman, an 83-year-old Berkeley resident with congenital spinal malformations, arachnoditis and severe neuropathy.
• Chandana Banerjee, a hospice and palliative care physician and associate professor at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte.
• Catherine Sonquist Forest, a family medicine physician and clinical associate professor of family medicine in Los Altos.
• Compassion & Choices Action Network, sister organization to Compassion & Choices and sponsor of SB 380.

Background: United Spinal, et al. v. State of California, et al.

The original lawsuit (United Spinal Association, et al. v. State of California, et al.) was filed by a coalition of disability rights groups (United Spinal Association, Not Dead Yet, Institute for Patients’ Rights, Communities Actively Living Independent and Free), and two people with disabilities in April 2023. Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice in March.

He found that California’s medical aid-in-dying law does not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act because medical aid in dying is always voluntary and doesn’t prevent access to other healthcare options and, therefore, people with disabilities are not “excluded from participation in or denied the benefit of any services.” Similarly, Judge Aenlle-Rocha found that the law did not violate the US Constitution’s guarantee of due process because a “mere disagreement with the efficacy of the EOLOA’s safeguards… is insufficient [when] the plain text of the statute evidences an intent to afford patients ample process to avoid the danger of involuntary death.”

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