
The advocacy group Compassion & Choices says that bills on aid-in-dying have been introduced this year in Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Utah. Court cases have surfaced in New York and California.
Proponents, such as Compassion & Choices' Sean Crowley, hope the issue follows a path similar to another political movement: marriage equality for gays. Proponents of gay marriage won victories in referendums, in state legislatures and in the courts. "Like them," Crowley said, “we are pursuing whatever are the most advantageous strategies in each state.”
As with gay marriage, proponents of medical aid-in-dying say popular opinion is trending in their direction. They point to a number of national and state polls, such as one last month by the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers University in New Jersey, that show significant majorities of Americans support giving terminally ill patients the option of ending their own lives peacefully.
The issue gained high visibility late last year through the plight of 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, an attractive, articulate young woman with an incurable brain cancer who publicly expressed her intention to end her life. Surrounded by family, she did so in her Portland, Oregon, home Nov. 1, by taking a lethal medication.
The states that allow medical aid-in-dying have generally adopted Oregon's practices, which require the patient to be at least 18 years old, have a terminal illness with a prognosis of less than six months to live and the capacity to communicate health care decisions. The patient also must make two oral requests to the physician and one written request signed in the presence of two witnesses.
In Montana, an organization called Montanans Against Assisted Suicide spearheaded two bills in Montana's legislature this year to criminalize prescribing lethal medications to dying patients. One, which would have resulted in homicide charges against doctors who prescribed lethal medications to the terminally ill, failed in a 51-49 vote. The other, which would subject doctors to a 10-year prison sentence for the same offense, has yet to come up for a vote.
Bradley Williams, president of Montanans Against Suicide, argues that medical aid-in-dying would lead to family members ridding themselves of old and infirm relatives against their will. Allied with him are several disability organizations also opposed to prematurely ending the lives of those who others may believe to be burdens or have less than worthwhile lives.
Aid-in-dying supporters in Montana have not achieved legislative success either. While the Montana Supreme Court ruling allows the practice, it didn’t create any policies, such as Oregon’s, that would govern it. Montana state Sen. Dick Barrett, a Democrat, has repeatedly tried to pass legislation that would spell out policies but without success.
More Articles
- National Institutes of Health: Common Misconceptions About Vitamins and Minerals
- A Yale Medicine Doctor Explains How Naloxone, a Medication That Reverses an Opioid Overdose, Works
- Kaiser Health News Research Roundup: Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine; Long Covid; Supplemental Vitamin D; Cell Movement
- How They Did It: Tampa Bay Times Reporters Expose High Airborne Lead Levels at Florida Recycling Factory
- A Scout Report Selection: Science-Based Medicine
- Journalist's Resource: Religious Exemptions and Required Vaccines; Examining the Research
- Government of Canada Renews Investment in Largest Canadian Study on Aging
- Kaiser Health News: Paying Billions for Controversial Alzheimer’s Drug? How About Funding This Instead?
- Medicare Covers FDA-approved COVID-19 Vaccines; You Pay Nothing For the COVID-19 Vaccine
- Envision Color: Activity Patterns in the Brain are Specific to the Color You See; NIH Research Findings Reveal New Aspects of Visual Processing