Opinion: Might California’s New Law on Assisted Suicide Facilitate Elder Abuse?

Washington State Elder Law Attorney Margaret Dore has shared with us her interesting analysis of “California’s Assisted Suicide Law: Whose Choice Will It Be?,” published here in JURIST, the on-line platform by University of Pittsburgh Law.  She criticizes California’s new law as inviting misuse, including elder abuse, observing:

The bill, ABX2-15, has an application process to obtain the lethal dose, which includes a written lethal dose request form with two required witnesses. Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight over administration. No one, not even a doctor, is required to be present at the death. 
 
ABX2-15 allows one of the two witnesses on the lethal dose request form to be the patient’s heir, who will financially benefit from the patient’s death. This is an extreme conflict of interest. Indeed, under California’s Probate Code, similar conduct (an heir’s acting as a witness on a will) can create a presumption that the will was procured by “duress, menace, fraud or undue influence.” ABX2-15, which specifically allows the patient’s heir to be a witness on the lethal dose request form, does not promote patient choice. It invites duress, menace, fraud and undue influence.

Further, she notes the potential trauma for family members, citing examples from her practice:

Two of my clients, whose fathers signed up for the lethal dose in Washington and Oregon, suffered similar trauma. In the first case, one side of the family wanted the father to take the lethal dose, while the other side did not. The father spent the last months of his life caught in the middle and torn over whether or not he should kill himself. My client, his adult daughter, was severely traumatized. The father did not take the lethal dose and died a natural death. In the other case, it is not clear that administration of the lethal dose was voluntary. A man who was present told my client that the client’s father had refused to take the lethal dose when it was delivered, stating: “You’re not killing me. I’m going to bed.” But then took the lethal dose the next night when he was already intoxicated on alcohol. My client, although he was not present, was traumatized over the incident, and also by the sudden loss of his father.

Ms. Dore is a former Chair of the Elder Law Committee of the American Bar Association Family Law Section. She is also president of Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation opposed to assisted suicide and euthanasia.