Unafraid of death, in fear of pain

A lawsuit filed in a San Diego court last week seeks confirmation of the belief that existing state law and the constitution of California provide legal cover for doctors who assist terminally ill patients in ending their lives. The suit is led by a La Jolla physician and a former Los Angeles Police Department sergeant suffering from lung cancer who has been told by doctors she has less than six months to live.

"The most likely way that I'm going to die with the lung cancer is that my left lung will fill with fluid, I'll start drowning in my own fluid," says former officer Christy O'Donnell in a video released in support of her cause on May 18. "I spend an inordinate amount of time being afraid of the pain that I'm going to endure. All of that time that my mind spends thinking about that, I am not living. I don't want to die [but] I should be able to get a prescription [for aid-in-dying medication], have that peace and never think about it 'til the day I'm ready to die."

O'Donnell and two other patient plaintiffs are also active in supporting the state legislature's SB 128, known as the End of Life Option Act, which would clarify the legal status of doctor-assisted suicide in certain circumstances. Such measures already exist in four other states around the country.

"The situation is urgent for terminally ill Californians like Christy because they cannot afford to wait for relief from unbearable suffering in their last days," adds Lynette Cederquist, M.D., a La Jolla–based internal medicine physician and co-plaintiff in the suit.

Plaintiffs argue that medical aid in dying is a preferable alternative to the legally permissible "palliative sedation," in which a dying patient is placed in a drug-induced coma and nutrition and fluids are withheld until death.

While there is no time line established for the resolution of the suit, legislators have until June 5 to act on SB 128 in the senate, and until September 11 to pass the bill should it reach the assembly.