California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation allowing terminally ill people in the nation's most populous state to use doctor-prescribed drugs to take their own lives. Brown says the emotionally charged bill forced him to consider what he would want if he was dying.

Brown, a lifelong Catholic and former Jesuit seminarian, said he acted after discussing the issue with many people, including a Catholic bishop and two of his own doctors.

California is the fifth state with such a law.. The measure applies only to mentally sound people and not those who are depressed or impaired.

Religious groups, including the Catholic Church, and advocates for people with disabilities opposed the measure, saying it legalizes premature suicide and puts terminally ill patients at risk for coerced death.

Christian disability advocate Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic, said she was ``deeply dismayed'' that Brown signed the legislation. She said, ``Compassion should never be defined as a lethal prescription put on your bedside table. To me, that is the consummate act of alienation and abandonment.''

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