HARTFORD — The battle over the availability of deadly drugs for terminally ill patients in Connecticut approached its third decade on Wednesday, as advocates launched their latest push for the so-called “aid in dying» legislation.
“Show a little mercy, it’s hard to come back,” said actor Jim Naughton of Westonwho made his fifth trip to the State Capitol to advocate for assisted death since his wife, Pamela, died of pancreatic cancer in 2013.
“I don’t know how many more years we have to keep going through this,” Naughton said. “It’s way too much.”
Efforts to legalize the use of doctor-prescribed drugs to end one’s life — which critics say amounts to a form of euthanasia — date back to at least 1994 in Connecticut. Since then, there have been at least a dozen attempts to pass legislation, none of which made it upstairs to either chamber for a vote.
In recent years, however, proponents of assisted dying seem to have made progress in recent years by winning the support of legislators in the public health commission. However, they have yet to clear the second hurdle, the Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers have raised concerns about the legal ramifications of the practice.
Critics of assisted dying – which include religious organizations and disability rights groups – have argued that even with strong protections, assisted dying laws in other jurisdictions have inevitably led to abuse and extensions to include patients who have not been diagnosed with terminal illnesses.
“The ostensible safeguards of legislation here in Connecticut are now called barriers in other states, including Oregon and Washington, and are being removed by legislation and the court process,” said Cathy Ludlum, an advocate. disabled people in Manchester.
In the United States, ten states and the District of Columbia have some form of legalized medical assistance in dying, including Vermont and Maine.
On Wednesday, the public health commission voted massively to begin the process of drafting a new bill, which Senator Saud Anwar’s Co-Chair, D-South Windsor, said would be “significantly different” from previous bills and would attempt to address some of the legal concerns raised by other legislators, such as how to assess whether a patient is competent to make a decision to end their life and what information to include on the death certificates of people who chose to take the drugs.
Still, it’s still too early to tell on Wednesday whether the momentum for assisted dying has changed over the past year.
Judiciary committee co-chairman State Rep. Steve Staffstrom, D-Bridgeport, said he couldn’t gauge the committee’s support for the legislation until he sees a draft copy. The composition of the committee has changed, he noted, and some members have not yet studied the matter thoroughly.
Ahead of the vote, the Compassion & Choices Action Network held a press conference to stress the urgency of the legislation, with their supporters hanging posters in a walkway under the Capitol depicting loved ones who have died without the possibility of life support. dead. .
Bonnell Lombardi, of Washington, pointed to polls showing broad support for assisted death by hanging a photo of him and his wife, Rosemarie, who died in 2009 after experiencing ‘unspeakably horrific pain’ from breast cancer. pancreas.
“They shouldn’t be forcing their will on more than 70% of Connecticut residents who want the option,” Lombardi said.
At a separate press conference on Wednesday, a group of Republican lawmakers who announced their renewed opposition to assisted dying said they would oppose the legislation with their own proposals to improve the quality of hospice care. as well as a bill requiring all death certificates issued to terminally ill patients who die after taking lethal drugs to list the manner of death as “suicide.”
Anwar and Compassion & Choices Action Network senior campaign manager Tim Appleton said they were open to negotiations with other advocates and lawmakers to allay their concerns before drafting a bill.
State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, one of the lawmakers who have voiced their objections to the assisted death bill, said she would also be open to discussions to “improve the bill.” law” – before admitting that it was unlikely that she, personally, would vote in favor of any version of the legislation.
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