Court challenge to California’s assisted suicide law heard March 26 in Pasadena
By Valerie Schmalz
Is there a chance that California’s physician assisted suicide law will be declared unconstitutional and in violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act?
Maybe. The first step will be for a federal appeals court to rule that the patient disability rights advocates challenging California’s End of Life Option Act can go back to court and have a trial on the merits of their case, with evidence and arguments presented by both patient disability rights advocates and the state of California.
A hearing before a panel of three judges of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on March 26 in Pasadena heard the appeal of the case challenging the End of Life Option Act which had been dismissed as without merit by a lower court judge.
The law itself, on its face, treats those with terminal disabilities differently, attorney Ernest Galvan told the Ninth Circuit judges. “It is not only pushing people toward death; it is pushing people to an inferior system of medical care.”
The End of Life Option Act, which took effect in 2016, immunizes doctors from any ordinary system of oversight and liability for patient care, Galvan said, “so no sanction can be taken.”
The challenge to the End of Life Option Act is based on evidence since the law took effect. It is a “post enforcement challenge. Our complaint is replete with facts regarding the ways these statutes work,” Galvan told the judges.
The plaintiffs are four organizations, United Spinal Association, Not Dead Yet, the Institute for Patients’ Rights, and Communities Actively Living Independent and Free, and two individuals Ingrid Tischer and Lonnie VanHook. VanHook has died since the case was filed, so Tischer is the remaining individual plaintiff.
The state of California is defending the law. The lawsuit also names the County of Los Angeles, the Medical Board of California and numerous others.
“When you have legal assisted suicide, some people get suicide prevention but other people—namely those with life-threatening disabilities—get suicide help. And the main difference is somebody’s health and disability status. And that is against the law,” said Matt Valliere, executive director of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund and of the Institute for Patients’ Rights. The plaintiffs have created a website, End Assisted Suicide.org, with more details.
Under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution’s equal protection clause, “you can’t treat one person differently,” he said.
The case also argues that California’s law violates the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and its predecessor the Rehabilitation Act.
In his ruling, the federal district court judge who dismissed the case said the two plaintiffs with disabilities lacked standing and that terminal patients who choose assisted suicide medication do so voluntarily.
The goal is to overturn California’s End of Life Option Act, and “to elevate the concerns of the disability community when they are forced to live under a regime that creates a two-tiered system of medicine that devalues their lives,” Valliere said.
It is cheaper to kill a disabled or terminally ill person via physician assisted suicide than to provide expensive medical care and therapies, including mental health support for suicide ideation, said Valliere.
“The state has said it will pay for every assisted suicide, but it won’t guarantee that palliative care will be covered,” Valliere said.
“This is just funneling our people into one choice. Because we are difficult to treat and expensive,” Valliere said.
Valliere said it will likely be months before a final ruling. He said the judges “were not hostile to our side.” He said they asked questions that “indicates they have an open mind.”
“If we were to win this case ultimately,” Valliere said, there would be a good chance physician assisted suicide laws would be overturned in Oregon, Washington, Hawaii. Currently 10 states and the District of Columbia have physician assisted suicide laws. “It would send a shock wave through the nation. It would hypothetically be an end to assisted suicide in the United States.”
The Catholic Church has created a ministry, Care for the Whole Person, go here to learn more about the ministry in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Read the lawsuit complaint challenging the End of Life Option Act here.
Watch the March 26 hearing here.