Record numbers of people ended their lives in California last year in America’s biggest doctor-assisted suicide program, after lawmakers made it easier for residents to get their hands on lethal drugs.
Last year, 1,270 people got fatal prescriptions under the state’s End of Life Option Act (ELOA), and 853 people used them to end their lives, the California Department of Public Health said in its annual report.
That’s a jump from 863 scripts and 522 deaths the previous year.
The data come amid growing concerns that California, Oregon, and other US states are liberalizing their assisted-suicide programs too quickly and following the example of Canada, where some 13,500 people were euthanized last year.
California witnessed a surge of assisted suicides after the rules were loosened at the start of 2022
Those who choose an assisted suicide in the US typically get a cocktail of drugs they ingest at home
The surge in assisted suicides came after California lawmakers in 2021 backed a law that shortened from 15 days to 48 hours the time needed to apply for a cocktail of suicide drugs. That law took effect in January.
‘It’s no wonder that the number of assisted suicides soared in the year after the California legislature effectively removed the original 15-day cooling-off period,’ Matt Valliere, director of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, told DailyMail.com.
‘Most Medi-Cal patients cannot get a mental health consult in less than 72 hours and are not guaranteed palliative care, but now, they can get suicide drugs in 48 hours and the state will pay for it every time.’
California’s assisted suicide program is available to adults who have a terminal illness and less than six months to live. In 2022, most of those who ended their lives were elderly, white, college-educated residents suffering from cancer, heart disease or brain disease.
They typically ended their lives with a mix of sedatives, opioids, and cardiotonics, which make the heart pump faster. In most cases, they took them in their homes or at an assisted living facility.
Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, warned that many US assisted-suicide programs have unreliable data, as not all doctors accurately report scripts and deaths back to the state health body.
In California last year, doctors wrote 294 prescriptions for which there was an ‘unknown ingestion status,’ says the 15-page report.
That could mean the prescriptions were never filled, that life-threatening drugs are sitting unused in a drawer, or that the patient used them to kill themselves and the death was not recorded.
Most of those who ended their lives were suffering from cancer, heart disease or brain disease
‘The law gets in your head,’ says Ingrid Tischer, who lives with a form of muscular dystrophy
‘This self-reporting system makes it is impossible to know when a doctor does not send in a report or abuses the law,’ said Schadenberg.
California Department of Public Health did not immediately answer DailyMail.com’s request for more information.
Supporters of assisted suicide schemes say they help some desperately sick people end their suffering. Critics say they devalue human life and make death a solution for the infirm, disabled and even those who are cash-strapped or feel like a burden.
California started to allow physician-assisted suicides in June 2016. It permits terminally ill adult Californians, with less than six months left to live, to ask doctors for a fatal dose of drugs they then administer themselves, typically at home.
Matt Vallière, executive director of the Patients Rights Action Fund
Several campaign groups for disabled people earlier this year filed a lawsuit to declare California’s ELOA ‘unlawful and unconstitutional’ because it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In their suit, they complain about the bias they faced trying to get health care during the coronavirus pandemic and say the system is too quick to offer assisted suicides.
People with disabilities often struggle to get the medical care they need and, as a result, may be quick to seek assisted suicide as an option, lawyers in the case say.
Ingrid Tischer, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who lives with a form of muscular dystrophy, says doctors were unwilling to treat her properly when she contracted pneumonia during COVID-19.
‘The law gets in your head. That’s what happened to me,’ says Tischer.
A non-disabled person is steered towards suicide prevention. And the disabled person is steered toward a suicide prescription.’
Diane Coleman, a woman with neuromuscular disabilities who has used a wheelchair since childhood, and now heads the national rights group Not Dead Yet, is also involved in the lawsuit.
‘Assisted suicide is just one of the many symptoms of an ableist eugenics society that believes life with a disability is a fate worse than death,’ she said.
Supporters of California’s law say there are safeguards to the system, including a requirement that two doctors green-light every suicide. Having a disability alone would not qualify an individual under ELOA.