California the latest to pass a Death with Dignity law, 5th in US

Medical personnel are trained to “first do no harm.” In end-of-life treatment, that simple directive can be difficult to interpret, and the legal landscape has evolved in the United States over the past 25 years. In 1990, the US Supreme Court ruled that physicians and other health care providers could withhold medical treatment at the direction of a patient or the patient’s directed agent.

Most recently, a movement to provide patients’ help in dying has been termed “death with dignity” and “assisted suicide.” Federal law does not currently address euthanasia or “mercy killings” in terminal patients who seek a physician’s aid to end their own suffering. Rather, the patient’s right to obtain a physician’s or other health care provider’s help to end their life is established by state law.

California became the fifth state to enact a law giving doctors and health care providers authority to take an active role in a patient’s death. California’s law went into effect on June 9, 2016.

Five states – California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington – allow a terminally ill adult the ability to obtain a prescription for a lethal dose of medicine from a physician. California is the most recent state to enact this type of law.
Five states – California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington – allow a terminally ill adult the ability to obtain a prescription for a lethal dose of medicine from a physician. California is the most recent state to enact this type of law.

New data published to LawAtlas.org, curated by Elizabeth Glass Geltman, JD, LLM, explores which states have enacted death with dignity legislation, which outlaw physician-assisted suicide, and which make the practice criminal.

Most states do not allow patients to end their lives – with or without the aid of a doctor or other heath care provider.

45 states and the District of Columbia prohibit a terminally ill adult from obtaining a prescription for a lethal dose of medicine from a physician.
45 states and the District of Columbia prohibit a terminally ill adult from obtaining a prescription for a lethal dose of medicine from a physician.

Most states allowing physician assisted suicide take pains to limit the practice to terminally ill patients laws expected to die within a certain period of time. Most also provide rigorous guidelines to ensure the patient really wants the help of the physician to hasten death, that the decision is not sudden, impulsive or coerced and that the patient has no hope of recovery.

The new map also addresses which states are considering changes to current state policy legalizing the practice under certain circumstances — there are 19.

Visit LawAtlas.org for more information and to explore the laws and their characteristics.

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research

Based at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, the Center for Public Health Law Research supports the widespread adoption of scientific tools and methods for mapping and evaluating the impact of law on health. It works by developing and teaching public health law research and legal epidemiology methods (including legal mapping and policy surveillance); researching laws and policies that improve health, increase access to care, and create or remove barriers to health (e.g., laws or policies that create or remove inequity); and communicating and disseminating evidence to facilitate innovation.

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