A California judge has sparked uproar after ruling that the state’s assisted suicide law was unconstitutional.
On Tuesday, Judge Daniel A. Ottolia of the Riverside County Superior Court ruled that the 2015 End of Life Option Act was passed in an unconstitutional manner, and gave the California Attorney General Xavier Becerra five days to file an appeal before the law was invalidated.
Importantly, Judge Ottolia’s decision did not pertain to the content of the Act, but rather to the manner in which was enacted.
Ottolia said that the summer 2015 extraordinary session of the California Legislature in which the bill was enacted was supposed to be limited to matters of health finance; assisted suicide legislation falls outside of the domain of health finance. The scope of the special session was outlined in a Proclamation by California governor Jerry Brown, who later that year signed the bill into law. Assisted suicide is not mentioned in the Proclamation.
Opponents of the End of Life Option Act welcomed the decision.
“We're very satisfied with the court's decision today," said Stephen G. Larson, lead counsel for a group of doctors who sued in 2016 to stop the law. "The act itself was rushed through the special session of the Legislature and it does not have any of the safeguards one would expect to see in a law like this”.
But supporters of the Act were scathing of the decision. Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, the Stockton Democrat who carried the bill, said Californians who are in the process of obtaining life-ending drugs through the law have had "the carpet ripped out from under their feet”.
End-of-Life law expert Thaddeus Pope believes that the decision is questionable. Pope wrote in a recent blog post:
...the Governor’s Proclamation mentioned both healthcare finance and healthcare generally. Therefore, pursuant to state supreme court precedent that interprets the special session clause of the constitution, the legislature had the power to enact “any” healthcare related legislation during the special session. It strains credulity to suggest that the End Of Life Option Act, which focuses on regulating physician-patient interactions, does not relate to healthcare.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra said that he strongly disagreed with the ruling, and that he plans to file an appeal.
Fonte: https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/california-judge-overturns-assisted-suicide/12697
- MARCOS COLTRI
- Advogado. Especialista em Direito Médico e Odontológico. Especialista em Direito da Medicina (Coimbra). Mestre em Odontologia Legal. Coordenador da Pós-graduação em Direito Médico e Hospitalar - Escola Paulista de Direito (EPD). Coordenador ajunto do Mestrado em Direito Médico e Odontológico da São Leopoldo Mandic. Preceptor nos programas de Residência Jurídica em Direito Médico e Odontológico (Responsabilidade civil, Processo ético médico/odontológico e Perícia Cível) - ABRADIMED (Academia Brasileira de Direito Médico). Membro do Comitê de Bioética do HCor. Docente convidado da Especialização em Direito da Medicina do Centro de Direito Biomédico - Universidade de Coimbra. Ex-Presidente das Comissões de Direito Médico e de Direito Odontológico da OAB-Santana/SP. Docente convidado em cursos de Especialização em Odontologia Legal. Docente convidado no curso de Perícias e Assessorias Técnicas em Odontologia (FUNDECTO). Docente convidado de cursos de Gestão da Qualidade em Serviços de Saúde. Especialista em Seguro de Responsabilidade Civil Profissional. Diretor da ABRADIMED. Autor da obra: COMENTÁRIOS AO CÓDIGO DE ÉTICA MÉDICA.
