Reacting to the resurgence of legislation in California that seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide, the California Medical Association reaffirmed its stance against the measure that would allow a doctor to aid a patient in dying. The association cites the fundamental belief that those in the medical profession should "do no harm" and should instead provide compassionate care.

"The CMA believes in humane and compassionate care for the terminally ill, including appropriate pain control and counseling for the dying and their families," says Anmol  Mahal, MD, CMA president. "But assisting someone to die is unethical and unacceptable, and is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer."

AB 651, or the California Compassionate Choices Act, co-authored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) and Assemblywoman Patty Berg (D-Eureka) in 2006, failed this past June in the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, the bill (renamed AB 374) has been reintroduced in this year's legislative session, with the same provisions as the original measure.

The bill stipulates that the patient must be mentally capable, have six months or less to live and must be evaluated by two physicians. Additionally, the patient must make oral and written requests for a physician's help with suicide, be informed of other options, and wait through a cooling-off period. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) has joined Levine and Berg in supporting and co-authoring the new bill.

"Under the current system, terminally ill people are aided in their dying every day. But it's covert and secret, and it's done without regulation. Californians deserve better than that," Levine says.

The CMA has been fighting the legalization of physician-assisted suicide for years. However, the CMA does believe strongly in protecting the confidentiality of what occurs between doctor and patient. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the U.S. Attorney General could not use federal prescribing regulations to penalize physicians who participated in Oregon's physician-assisted suicide program, the CMA filed a brief arguing that the federal government does not have the authority to regulate the practice of medicine by interfering in the physician-patient relationship.

Since the 1980s, the CMA has reaffirmed it opposition to physician-assisted suicide on five different occasions.