A California appellate court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that rejects the state’s aid-in-dying law.
The 4th District Court of Appeals also refused to stay a previous decision by the Riverside County Superior Court. The lower court found state lawmakers erred when they passed the law during a special session on healthcare funding.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said efforts to nullify the state’s assisted-suicide law are misguided.
“For the past two years, the Act has provided terminally ill [people] to avoid prolonged suffering at the end-stage of their illness,” Becerra’s office wrote.
Seven states and the District of Columbia have enacted aid-in-dying legislation. Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed California’s law in 2015. The measure lets doctors prescribe lethal medications to patients determined to have less than six months to live.
