California End of Life Option Act
California End of Life Option Act is a law enacted in June 2016 by the California State Legislature which allows terminally ill adult residents in the state of California to access medical aid in dying by self-administering lethal drugs, provided specific circumstances are met. The law was signed in by California governor Jerry Brown in October 2015, making California the fifth state to allow physicians to prescribe drugs to end the life of a terminally ill patient, often referred to as physician-assisted suicide. In May 2018, a state trial court ruled that the law was unconstitutionally enacted, but the following month, the law was reinstated by a state appeals court; the law was affirmed by the California Supreme Court. History Previous similar bills have been rejected on at least four other occasions in the state of California and residents voted against a proposal in a ballot in 1992, however a report published by Compassion and Choices collating more recent regional and national independent opinion polls on the right to die issue shows that the US public consistently supports or strongly supports medical aid in dying. Criticism has also come from Life Legal Defense Foundation who have stated that there is