Baptist Press: 'Disability advocacy groups sue to overturn California assisted suicide law'

 By Timothy Cockes - Posted at Baptist Press:

LOS ANGELES (BP) – Several disability advocacy organizations have filed a lawsuit asking California’s End of Life Option Act (EOLOA), a law related to medically assisted suicide, to be declared “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

The organizations believe the EOLOA, a seven-year-old law that was updated in 2021, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and fails to provide equal protection under the law as outlined in the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The updated law reduced to 48 hours the required waiting period between the first and second doses of lethal medications sought by terminally ill patients.

Advocates for people with disabilities say the law violates the Americans with Disabilities Act because those with a terminal diagnosis are considered disabled.

A release from the advocacy groups states the EOLOA law is purposefully unregulated by any entity in California and that state officials and agencies operate under a system which will “treat people with life-threatening disabilities differently than less- and non-disabled people when it comes to expressions of suicidality and supplying appropriate mental health and medical care.”

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