California lawmakers approve physician-assisted suicide

California lawmakers approved a bill on Friday allowing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, in a vote of 23 to 14.

The bill, modeled after Oregon’s, would allow mentally competent patients to request a prescription to end their lives, following confirmation by two doctors that the patients only had six months to live, Reuters reported.

“We are here today on the precipice of granting a wish that I was not able to give my mother,” Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson said about her mother, who she described as dying in agony from leukemia.

Also present at the capitol in Sacramento on Friday were Debbie Ziegler and Gary Holmes, the parents of Brittany Maynard.

Maynard, a 29-year-old brain cancer patient, sparked a renewed conversation in the nation over assisted suicide, when she left her home in California last year to take advantage of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.

In November 2014, PBS NewsHour Weekend explored Oregon’s law and the state of assisted suicide in the country.

Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal through so-called death with dignity laws in Washington, Montana and Vermont. In Montana, a court may rule in favor of a physician-assisted suicide, according to the Death with Dignity National Center.

The California bill will next land on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk, where he has the ability to veto it.