California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has finally admitted the truth about assisted suicide after he watched his mother take her own life through assisted suicide, according to an interview published on Wednesday. As a Catholic, I’m pro-life from the moment of conception to natural death. Life is a sacred gift from God and possesses inherent dignity because He made us in His image. Taking one’s own life constitutes murder, which directly conflicts with God’s law.
During the interview, Newsom said that in 2002 his mother, Tessa, was dying of cancer. She called him and left a voicemail, telling him that if he wanted to see her one last time, he would need to visit within the week because she planned to end her life through assisted suicide. Newsom was 34 years old at the time.
At that point in his life, Newsom focused heavily on his career and tried to navigate the waters of California politics. He described feeling guilt for not taking the opportunity to visit his mother as she suffered from metastatic breast cancer.
“I hated her for it — to be there for the last breath — for years,” he said during the interview. Newsom then revealed what proponents of assisted suicide try to hide. Watching his mother die through assisted suicide did not bring a cathartic or peaceful moment. Nor should it. The act is not natural. For Catholics and Christians, death does not belong to the natural order. It exists as a consequence of living in a fallen world marred by sin. God created humanity for eternity, body and soul. Death should not exist in this world, and deep down, every person knows it.
Catholic teaching does state that God permits death as a form of grace because, for those who place their faith in Christ, it serves as an exit from a sinful and broken world. If humans lived forever in an imperfect world, the misery would prove too cruel for the soul to endure. Still, death remains our enemy, and Jesus Christ defeated it through His death, burial, and resurrection.
“I want to say it was a beautiful experience. It was horrible,” the governor said. “Then I sat there with her for another 20 minutes after she was dead,” he added, his voice breaking and his eyes filling with tears. “My head on her stomach, just crying, waiting for another breath.”
One would think such a horrific experience would change his perspective on assisted suicide, yet he still believes the country should legalize the practice nationwide. Newsom has not learned his lesson, even though he clearly understands it. Once again, he places his political career above the wellbeing not only of his own mother, but of every person he represents and hopes to represent in the future.
“In 2015, California legalized assisted suicide, and the law went into effect in 2016. Newsom signed another bill in 2019 that shortened the waiting period for a drug-induced suicide from more than two weeks to just two days. In 2025, he signed yet another bill that removed a ‘sunset clause’ from the 2015 legislation. With that stroke of the pen, he made assisted suicide legal in California indefinitely,” The Daily Caller reported.
Newsom told The Washington Post that some of his family members from “the old Irish Catholic side” were “up in arms about the bill, and obviously, by extension, by what my mom did.” On this issue, his Irish Catholic relatives are absolutely right.
“I watched the physical deterioration, the mental deterioration, just the cries of pain,” he said. “She would have just suffered.”
The memory of his mother’s death has not stopped him from promoting a practice that will traumatize countless others who must endure the same ordeal. His actions reveal a shocking lack of care for others and once again show that his political future matters more to him than his constituents.
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