Platform 2012: Death With Dignity

The California Democratic Party respects the concept of individual autonomy and desires to see the legal system reflect a wide range of choices for all people with respect to the integrity of their body and their very lives. 

We thus support the right of any competent adult, suffering intractable pain as a consequence of a fatal illness, who has been medically diagnosed as having not more than six months to live, to obtain the assistance of medical doctors in painlessly ending her or his own life. 

We are also aware that such a process may be open to potential abuses and urge that safeguards be taken so that this right of patient self-determination will not be misused by either family members or health care personnel to precipitate the demise of any disabled person who desires to continue living.