Calif. lawmakers seek assisted-suicide law

SACRAMENTO, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- California lawmakers say they intend to legalize physician-assisted suicide, even as President Bush asks the U.S. Supreme Court to prohibit such acts.

California Assembly members Patty Berg, D-Santa Rosa, and Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, next year plan to introduce a bill similar to Oregon's Death With Dignity Act. Other attempts to enact such a measure in California have twice failed, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

California law currently categorizes the act of assisting anyone with ending his or her life as a felony.

Between 1998 and 2003, Oregon physicians assisted 171 terminally ill patients in committing suicide.