On Monday, October 5, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the controversial "End of Life Option Act" into law, making physician-assisted suicide legal in the nation's most populous state. Center Director Carter Snead called the decision "selfish and short-sighted" in a statement released today:

Quoting the highly personal terms in which Brown had cast his decision — “In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” the governor said — Snead insisted that “Gov. Brown and those like him — affluent, privileged, able-bodied and with supportive families — are not the ones who will pay the price for this new ‘freedom.’”

 

“What Gov. Brown should have been reflecting on instead,” Snead said, “was the poor, the disabled, the marginalized and the elderly who are now exposed to grave and lethal new risks of fraud, abuse, mistake and coercion. He should have been reflecting on those who are suffering from untreated, but treatable, depression or badly managed, but manageable, pain, people for whom the path of least resistance is now self-administration of lethal drugs.

Read the full statement here.