CON: DOWN A SLIPPERY SLOPE OREGON EUTHANASIA LAW PROVING TO BE UNMONITORABLE.

Byline: Tad Cronn

THE rain fell in steady sheets outside as the little group huddled in Assemblywoman Cindy Montaez's storefront office in Mission Hills earlier this year, next door to the Jiffy Lube.

There were only six of them, representing various local congregations, as they went over notes and quickly discussed last-minute questions with the slightly nervous air of a small theater group on opening night.

The tension was understandable. They probably would only get one shot at making a difference, and the issue that had brought them all out on this stormy afternoon was no less than a matter of life or death.

Across the state of California, other groups are engaged in similar efforts, lobbying Assembly members to halt the progress of Assembly Bill 654, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine's and Assemblywoman Patty Berg's bill to allow ``physician-assisted suicide'' - euthanasia - to become the law of the land.

The bill is expected to be heard by the Judiciary Committee, of which Montaez is a member, on April 12.

Pro-life activists, conservative and liberal alike, oppose AB 654 not only on principle, but out of justified concern that it would take California down the same path as Oregon, which has proven itself unable to accurately monitor, much less control, euthanasia under its 1994 assisted-suicide law.

The problems in reporting, tracking and investigating cases of euthanasia have been so persistent that the Oregon Health Service finally admitted in a report that it ``cannot determine whether physician assisted suicide is being practiced outside the framework of the Death With Dignity Act.''

Like its Oregon counterpart, AB 654 attempts to create safeguards for patients, but a close look at the bill reveals numerous loopholes and restrictions that would likely hamper the state's monitoring of any assisted suicides. As written, the measure has no real provisions for ensuring that patients requesting suicide drugs are acting under their own free will.

That is of particular concern when dealing with elderly patients who may be pressured by their families to accept the suicide option, according to Dr. Kathryn Watson. Familial pressure in care decisions is already a problem in the nursing homes she's visited.

``I see that all the time,'' Watson told Montaez aides Steve Veres and Michael Cortez. ``You see patients being subtly coerced.''

In its current form, AB 654 offers few restrictions on who would be eligible to request the suicide treatment from their doctors. To qualify, a patient only must be 18 or older, be capable of communicating medical decisions, have been diagnosed with fewer than six months to live, be a California resident and voluntarily request the lethal prescription.

There are a handful of other requirements, including a second doctor's opinion. There is an option to ``offer'' psychiatric counseling if the physician feels a patient may be depressed.

``Is this going to lead to (euthanasia) becoming the standard treatment for depression?'' asked Veronique Gaeta, an instructor with the Los Angeles Archdiocese Office of Family Life. It's an important issue in light of a piece of legislation that would turn traditional wisdom on its ear.

The bill's restrictions, lax as they are, could exacerbate the problem were such a law to pass, according to Laura Mitchell, a policy analyst with the California Disability Alliance.

In our litigious society, it likely would not be long before someone who was barred from assisted suicide would sue to expand the rules, under the theory of equal protection or some other legal approach.

``One person's safeguard is another person's barrier,'' Mitchell said. ``We don't believe that the safeguards, the written safeguards, are of any value. They are almost certain to be expanded.''

And really, there's no reason to believe that they will work. They never worked in the Netherlands, where euthanasia was instituted with ``safeguards,'' but where doctors now kill children without parental consent and have even gotten away with killing adults who had expressed their desire to live. The Dutch courts have given doctors almost total latitude over who lives or dies, so long as they act ``in good faith.''

This is not the first time assisted suicide has come up in California. It's been beaten before, but it keeps coming back. So who wants this law to be passed?

It's not the potential patients.

In the years since its passage, only 208 people have taken advantage of Oregon's suicide law. During the same period, more than 53,000 patients eligible under the law chose to live out their time. Less than one-third of 1 percent of patients is hardly high demand.

Turns out the bill is sponsored by Compassion and Choices, an Arizona radical group with ties to the Hemlock Society and its fingers in the Oregon euthanasia campaign. California, which recently legalized cloning of human embryos for medical research, must be seen as ripe for the picking.

Proponents like to couch physician-assisted suicide in terms of ``choice.'' It's time California chooses to pull the plug on the death mongers.