A federal judge says part of California’s aid-in-dying law is unconstitutional because it requires physicians, regardless of personal objections, to report a terminally ill patient’s request for life-ending medication.
The law allows a patient to receive life-ending drugs if two doctors certify that the patient has six months or less to live and is mentally competent to choose death, and the patient has made two spoken requests for the drugs. It took effect in 2016 but was amended by lawmakers, effective this year, to allow the patient to make the requests within 48 hours of each other, rather than 15 days.
That change was prompted by evidence that the longer waiting period had prevented thousands of terminally ill Californians from requesting the medication because they were too ill, or had already died, within 15 days of their initial application.
But the new law also specifies that a doctor who has religious or moral objections to providing aid in dying must record a patient’s request and refer it to another physician who will assist in supplying the medications. Because that request counts as one of the two needed to obtain those medications, it violates objectors’ freedom of speech by requiring them to take part in implementing the law, said U.S. District Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha of Los Angeles.
“Non-participating providers are compelled to participate in the Act through this documentation requirement, despite their objections to assisted suicide,” Aenlle-Rocha, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said Friday in a ruling barring enforcement of that portion of the law against doctors who oppose it.
He cited the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling that said California violated the free-speech rights of anti-abortion clinics called “crisis pregnancy centers” by requiring them to notify their patients that the state makes abortions available to low-income women at little or no cost. Quoting Justice Clarence Thomas’ 5-4 decision in that case, Aennle-Rocha said, “the people lose when the government is the one deciding which ideas should prevail,” a principle that he said applies equally to the ethics of physician assistance in dying.
He said such objections would probably be relatively infrequent, and would have the effect of delaying approval of a patient’s request for the medications.
The suit was filed by the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, which said more than 90% of their members would stop practicing medicine in California if they had to comply with the state law.
“Our clients seek to live out their faith in their medical practice, and that includes valuing every human life entrusted to their care. Participating in physician-assisted suicide very clearly would violate their consciences,” attorney Kevin Theriot of the conservative legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom said Tuesday in response to the ruling.
Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said it was reviewing the decision, and declined further comment. The state could appeal to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
