Smith: Missed opportunity with right-to-die law

It was in 1776 that Thomas Jefferson declared the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with certain fundamental rights.

Despite the obviousness of the truism, the enslavement of an entire population had ripped the U.S. in two nearly a century later when Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed the bedrock tenet of equality in 1863, at Gettysburg.

How long did it then take for America to formally sanctify the self-evident truth of innate equality with the Civil Rights Act? Another 101 years.

We know the right thing to do, but so often, because of self-interest or politics or irrational resistance, we drag our feet. Many Americans suffered a prolonged injustice until the Supreme Court recognized not a month ago the clear truth that a couple of the same sex have the inalienable right to marry.

To a majority of Californians, it’s become evident also that a lucid person withering painfully from a terminal disease should have the option to ask a doctor for a prescription for a more controlled and satisfactory death.

When young Brittany Maynard advocated just that before the stricken ex-Bay Area resident exercised the right to a dignified death that she earned by moving to Oregon, there was a sense that this is the year California would at last adopt a law similar to Oregon’s.

But earlier this month, sponsors of the California bill shelved it because of a lack of votes needed to pass a key committee. Sebastopol’s Jeanette Lebell was initially crestfallen.

“This was such a golden opportunity,” said Lebell, whose husband, Jan Zlotnick, lost himself and his joy to cancer bit by bit.

Eager to see California arrive at the point of legalizing the doctor-assisted hastening of death for those terminally ill people who seek it, Lebell said, “I really, really thought that with Brittany Maynard so eloquently pleading her case that we were at that point.”

Just since Senate Bill 128 was placed on ice less than two weeks ago, the widow of Jan Zlotnick is feeling a bit better. Aware that these things take time, she’s hopeful that 2015 will prove to be the prelude to California’s doing right for those dying people who yearn to decide how and when they go.

“This may yet be the time,” Lebell said, “but it may take a little more work, or a lot more work.”

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TIM TESCONI put his heart into a grand celebration of Sonoma County agriculture the other night at the vineyard park off River Road created by his late friend, ag queen Saralee Kunde.

Tim worked 33 years as the PD’s farm reporter before he retired and moved on to the Farm Bureau, which he’s run the past two years. He oversaw the endless details of the Love of the Land dinner that honored the grape-growing Sangiacomo family of Sonoma Valley, Sebastopol’s Harmony Farm Supply and dairy advocate Paul Martin of Two Rock.

Having planned the program, Tim was perplexed when Gaye LeBaron stepped unscheduled onto the Love of the Land stage. Farm Bureau staffers had secretly arranged for her to come up and acknowledge Tim as he prepares to retire, this time presumably for good.

The crowd of 1,000 came to its feet at Gaye’s suggestion that Tim isn’t only the lyrical chronicler and staunch supporter of Sonoma County’s champions of agriculture, he is absolutely such a champion himself.

“What a gift you’ve been to all of us,” Gaye told Tim, who beamed at center stage though he’d have loved dearly to stay in the wings.

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BOHEMIAN “GROOVE” is what free spirits who favor art, music and Mother Earth call the public gathering Sunday evening on the happening South A Street, behind downtown Santa Rosa’s Juilliard Park.

At 7 p.m., following a concert in the park by The Crux, folks will gather at Atlas Coffee Co. and Chroma Gallery to counter the Bohemian Grove’s Cremation of Care with a Creation of Care ceremony.

There will be a comedy show, music, art, beverages and an opportunity to write notes to Mother Earth that artist Michael Coy will incorporate into an effigy that will go up in flames at the Burning Man festival in Nevada.

It’s astounding, all that happens here.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.