California Judge indicates He'll Dismiss Right-To-Die Lawsuit

A San Diego judge indicated that he intends to throw out a lawsuit against the state brought by terminally ill patients seeking to strike down a California law that forbids physicians from prescribing lethal doses of “aid-in-dying” drugs to hasten their deaths.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Gregory Pollack said during a hearing Friday that it’s not the role of the courts to settle the polarizing issue, the Associated Press reports:

You’re asking this court to make new law,” Pollack said. “If new law is made it should be by the Legislature or by a ballot measure.”

The judge said the parties probably could get “new law” from a higher court “but you can’t get it from a lower level Superior Court judge like me.’”

Attorneys on both sides agreed that dismissal was certain.

“This is something that needs to be addressed not by the court but is more appropriate for the Legislature,” said Darin Wessel, among district attorney teams from various counties that were part of the effort to seek dismissal…

A portrait of Brittany Maynard sits on the dias of the Senate 
Health Committee at the Capitol in Sacramento, CA

Some advocates say they thought the nationally publicized case of Brittany Maynard, the 29-year-old California woman with brain cancer who moved to Oregon to legally end her life last fall, might usher in a wave of state laws allowing doctors to prescribe life-ending medications. But no states have passed right-to-die legislation since Maynard’s death in 2014, and efforts have been defeated or stalled in several.

Three U.S. states — Oregon, Vermont and Washington — have approved assisted suicide through legislation. In most Western countries, physician-assisted dying remains a criminal offense.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.