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    California, will you really take away freedoms, too?
    • August 12, 2025

    Freedoms have eroded at the federal level. Really, California, will you roll back freedoms too?

    We hate to keep harping on this, but a simple, straightforward, eminently sensible bill about a fundamental freedom, put forth by Sen. Catherine Blakespear is causing some discomfort in Sacramento. It deals with — put on your big boy pants, people! — death.

    Senate Bill 403 by Blakespear, D-Encinitas, would do one thing and one thing only: Lift the sunset date on California’s End of Life Option Act, which currently is set to go away in 2031.

    The End of Life Option Act allows people with terminal conditions, and six months or less to live, to access Medical Aid in Dying medications. It has been the law of the land for nearly a decade and, if anything, it’s been vastly underutilized. If it is allowed to expire, a vital choice will be taken away.

    “Everyone is going to die,” Blakespear said. “But not everyone needs to suffer.”

    Blakespear will host an expert panel in a “Charting Your Own Exit” forum from 3-4:30 p.m. Aug. 14 at Mission Viejo’s Norman P. Murray Center, 24932 Veterans Way. A sister session held in December in in San Diego County was swamped with some 700 people — and broadcast online to accommodate them all.

    “The level of interest has been incredible,” Blakespear said. “I’m hearing from people who were diagnosed with conditions that aren’t going to affect them for maybe years, but they have anxiety thinking they won’t get to plan their own exit on their own terms if this law sunsets.”

    California's End of Life Option Act
    California’s End of Life Option Act (California Department of Public Health)

    The law is not about choosing death when life is an option. It’s about people who are already staring death in the face being allowed to decide for themselves when to close their eyes. People who don’t want to endure the last two weeks of cancer, and don’t want their families to endure it either.

    But, alas, some want to deny Californians that choice. The objections to eliminating the sunset date today are much the same as the objections to the law itself a decade ago: It will be abused. Vulnerable and disabled people will be targeted and bullied into ending their lives.

    Except — and here’s where facts matter — that has not happened.

    California has nearly a decade’s worth of data related to the law. Hordes of people are not being forced to their graves. In 2024, deaths connected to Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) legislation comprised just a tiny fraction of all deaths in California — 0.364%.

    The overwhelming majority of people who chose a medically aided death — 95% — were already on hospice and/or palliative care. And about one third of the prescriptions that are issued as part of the state’s MAID law are never filled. Just having the option appears to provide the peace of mind people need to carry on.

    Deborah Ziegler with a photo of her daughter Brittany Maynard who was very public about choosing to end her life after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. (ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER)
    Deborah Ziegler with a photo of her daughter Brittany Maynard who was very public about choosing to end her life after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
    (ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER)

    Also, far from being abused, the law is almost laughably underutilized.

    While Canada and California have almost identical populations (about 40 million each), more than 15,300 Canadians used MAID last year, compared to 1,032 Californians.

    California is a bit freakish in having a sunset date at all. None of the other states with similar laws do. The original idea was to allow for refinements over time, but that just hasn’t been necessary.

    “This has been the law for nine years and it’s working exactly as intended,” Blakespear said. “There could be more education about the fact that it’s available; many people don’t realize it’s the law. And people who do have to actively seek it out because it’s not proactively offered by every physician or hospice.

    “There’s no need for a sunset.”

    This is a modest bill that has won support in the Assembly and Senate, but is now before the appropriations committee (because amendments would mandate more data collection, which would cost money). Blakespear is optimistic about its fate, and we’re certainly rooting for it as well.

    California Department of Public Health
    California Department of Public Health

    This humble scribe has been taken to task several times over our scribblings on this topic, but I’d like to address this one now:

    “You didn’t even touch on the fact of God, himself, gives life and takes it away in His divine time,” a reader wrote to me “It irritates me, you do not cover, the right to life is God’s decision and HIS DECISION ONLY!”

    Having faith that strong must be an enormous comfort. But not everyone feels the same way. Not everyone believes the same things.

    California, do not take away our freedom to choose. “Suicide” is what happens when people with lives to live end them tragically. Prematurely. MAID is what happens when you’re dying, and simply want some say over how and when death comes.

    ​ Orange County Register 

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