Heather Curtis
WMAL.com.
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – Terminally ill Marylanders could someday be able to get a prescription for a medication to end their lives.
The End-of-Life Option Act being considered by the Maryland House Friday and Maryland Senate next week would give terminally ill people the option to get a liquid medication to end their lives.
“It acknowledges the rights of individuals at the ends of their lives to have an option, and I’m gonna underscore option, to die when they want, where they want and with whom they want,” said Dr. Michael Strauss, president of Marylanders of End-of-Life Options.
The Maryland Catholic Conference opposes the legislation, which it calls physician assisted suicide. The group says the bill threatens the state’s most vulnerable people including the elderly and disabled. Strauss said the bill is designed with a number of protections.
It the bill becomes law, terminally ill patients would need to go to their physicians and ask for the prescription three times over a period of 15 days. The physician would have to determine if the person meets a number of criteria including having a terminal illness that is likely to lead to death within six months. The person must also be a Maryland resident, at least 18-years-old with the mental capacity to make medical decisions and the ability to take the medication by him or herself. A second physician also has to agree that the patient meets this criteria.
Doctors and pharmacists would not be required to dispense the medication.
This is the fourth time such a bill has gone before the Maryland legislature since 2015.
“Our state has repeatedly rejected this group’s agenda and with good reason: assisted-suicide threatens Maryland’s most vulnerable, putting those with disabilities, the elderly, our veterans, and those battling prescription drug addiction at grave risk,” Jennifer Briemann, executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, wrote on the group’s website.
Despite its failure to pass in previous legislative sessions, Strauss believes the bill has the support to pass this year.
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