Board member Mollie Hazen with AB 374 co-author Assemblymember Patty Berg

Compassion and Choices of Northern California is closely involved in legislation to improve pain management and support assisted dying in California.  In 2006, we advocated in support of AB 651, California’s Compassionate Choices Act. We were involved in advocating for AB 374, California's Compassionate Choices Act. We spoke to our legislators, attended hearings, contacted the press, and offered financial support.

Unfortunately, one day before the June 8, 2007 deadline in the Assembly, lawmakers declined to bring AB 374 to a vote.  Assembly members Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez co-authored the bill and championed the cause valiantly. Berg’s Chief of Staff Will Shuck told the Sacramento Bee, “The people are there, and the politicians aren’t.” The bill is shelved for the year but could be taken up again in 2008.

AB 374, The California Compassionate Choices Act

The California Compassionate Choices Act is based on the simple principle that people should be free to make important end-of-life decisions based on their own values and beliefs. Terminally-ill patients want the right to have some measure of control at the end of their lives. The Compassionate Choices Act offers peace of mind to dying patients in California by placing the power to seek a humane, peaceful death solely in their hands.
For more information about the act, including a simple way to contact your lawmakers directly, please go to http://www.caforaidindying.org/index.php.

Read the AB 374 fact sheet (PDF).

The Oakland Tribune and other California papers ran an Op-Ed by Fran Johns, co-chair of Compassion and Choices of Northern California, that calls for lawmakers to reject opposition from the hierarchy of the Catholic church in the name of separation of church and state.

Read the Op-Ed (PDF)

Upholding Oregon's Death with Dignity Act

Members of our Board of Directors spoke out to uphold Oregon's Death
with Dignity Act.

Read Fran John's article,
"U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Oregon's Right-to-Die Law."

Listen to Stewart Florsheim speak on KQED, publc radio for Northern California.