After Sen. Bill Monning introduces End of Life Option Act, local docs and faith leaders line up on both sides.

The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas famously beseeched his father in his 1951 poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night./ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

It’s remained a powerful refrain, one that appears in pop culture references as a rallying cry against human frailty (most recently in the film Interstellar, where the lines serve as a pep talk across time and space).

Even hospice care, first introduced in the U.S. in the ’60s, is not without controversy; there is a long cultural and medical tradition of fighting back against death, rather than accepting it.

But increasingly there is talk of going gently, instead of raging, exhausted and in pain.

On Jan. 21, state senators Bill Monning, D-Carmel, and Lois Wolk, D-Davis, introduced SB 128, the End of Life Option Act, at the state capitol. The bill would allow adult patients who are mentally competent and have a terminal illness with no more than an estimated six months to live, based on an evaluation by two physicians, to seek a lethal prescription.

“At the core of this is respecting the dignity and personal autonomy, and I believe the civil right and human right, of a patient with a terminal illness to have the choice to manage a death sentence at the end of life,” Monning said.

As grieving speakers lined up at the microphone, the press conference was a somber affair. Debbie Ziegler spoke about her late daughter, Brittany Maynard, who made national headlines for her decision to move from California to Oregon last year at 29 to end her life with a prescription of barbiturates under Oregon’s Death With Dignity law.

Maynard was dying of brain cancer, and the whole family relocated and rented a home in Portland where she could live her last few months without invasive medical treatments.

“My daughter was full of life, and was determined that she would live life to the fullest, and that she would go quickly,” Ziegler said.

SB 128 mirrors Oregon’s bill, which went into effect in 1997, after three years of legal challenges to a voter-approved ballot initiative.

Introducing the legislation, Monning explained the careful reason they named it the End of Life Option Act: “Some will describe this as physician-assisted suicide. We strongly disagree with that characterization. As Brittany Maynard said, ‘I don’t have a suicidal bone in my body. I want to live, but I have a terminal cancer condition that will kill me.’” Behind him, Ziegler nodded vigorously.

But the characterization as suicide has already begun. Many entities, both local and in Sacramento, have yet to analyze SB 128 and form an opinion on it.

But some faith community leaders are ready to weigh in. “God gave me life, and he’s the one who has the option to take it away,” says Minister Ray De Loe of CrossRoads Church in Salinas. “I’m against any form of euthanasia. It’s one more sign of the deterioration of our society.”

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Rabbi Bruce Greenbaum of Congregation Beth Israel in Carmel also opposes the bill, even though his personal views on death tilt to the left of traditional Jewish thought. He believes easing pain and hastening death, perhaps within a day or two by upping the dosage in a morphine drip, is acceptable – though Judaism considers even that unacceptable.

“What Judaism stresses is, let’s look at the affliction. Instead of just killing the person, let’s see if we can ease the pain, mental or physical,” Greenbaum says. “The Jewish focus is on ending the suffering but not ending the life.”

Historically, the Catholic Church has also firmly opposed such legislation. Monning has already met with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, José Gomez, and Bishop of Monterey Richard Garcia, for conversations he describes as “cordial and respectful.” Garcia did not respond to repeated interview requests.

“We are not seeking to change church doctrine,” Monning says. “This is a voluntary right we seek to establish. No physician would be mandated to do it, and no patient would be mandated to do it.”

Other opponents of a similar 2007 bill, which lost momentum in committee, were the California Hospital Association and California Medical Association.

Locally, more than 200 practicing physicians are members of the Monterey County Medical Society, a CMA sister group. Society President Dr. Jeffrey Keating, a pathologist at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, says Monning called him to let him know the legislation was coming. Keating invited the senator to present on the End of Life Option Act at the society’s next meeting, Feb. 17.

Keating says it’s too soon to know where membership will fall, but pending legal concerns, he says the society is likely to support it. “Based on my discussion [with Monning], I don’t see why we wouldn’t,” he says. “It seems like it works in Oregon. That’s the advantage of having another state pass the law first.”

Historically, CMA has opposed similar legislation. In 2007-08 they lobbied against the end-of life-bill, which died in committee before ever making it to the Assembly floor.

Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System, Natividad Medical Center, CHOMP and Mee Memorial Hospital in King City are all members of CHA. Representatives of the first three declined to comment for this story, but Mee Memorial CEO Lex Smith spoke up about his opposition.

Smith intends to participate in CHA’s process in vetting the bill. If it passes, he says Mee Memorial will likely exercise the opt-out option and not participate in allowing patients to choose end-of-life prescriptions.

“The hospital cannot at this point in time participate in facilitating physician-assisted suicide,” Smith says. “That is in direct conflict with the Hippocratic oath.”

Hippocrates lived and worked in ancient Greece from about 460-370 B.C., and is known as the father of Western medicine – notably, for disassociating medicine from religion.

In Rabbi Greenbaum’s view, medicine and science should play a role, perhaps an even larger one than they do today. His message to Monning is that we should pursue better, if more costly, alternatives to reducing pain, instead of the end-of-life option: “Let’s find a way to end suffering another way. It might be more challenging, but worthwhile.”

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But life and death, in Greenbaum’s view, shouldn’t be left to politicians or physicians. “Life is terminal; we all are going to die,” he adds. “Six months seems like a very random number. Why do we say, ‘Six months is OK, seven months is not?’ When a doctor says, the person has six months to live, the doctor is playing the role of god in that situation, which to me is unacceptable.”

To Ziegler, her daughter’s decision to die on her terms was the right choice. Through tears, she urged supporters to call their lawmakers and ask them to support SB 128. “I implore the citizens of this state, stand up and make your voice heard,” she said, “even if it shakes – like mine.”