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A controversial bill to allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in California passed a key legislative committee on Tuesday, after failing in the legislature earlier this summer amid opposition from the Catholic Church. The measure, which passed 10-3, next goes to the assembly finance committee. (Bernstein, 9/1)

In a room filled with the pleas of the dying, California lawmakers approved a bill that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal prescriptions to terminal patients wanting to hasten their own deaths. The controversial legislation passed 10-2 in an Assembly special session committee on health on Tuesday, nearly two months after the issue appeared done for the year. The bill now heads to a special session committee on finance. (Gutierrez, 9/1)

A bill allowing physicians in California to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to hasten the death of the terminally ill passed a key milestone Tuesday when it was approved by its first committee in the state Assembly. A similar bill had previously stalled during the regular session in the Assembly Health Committee, but the proposal was revived when Gov. Jerry Brown called a special session with a different committee membership that was supportive of the bill. (McGreevy, 9/1)