On Friday, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee voted 5-0 to move a bill out of committee that would allow terminally ill patients to take their own lives with lethal doses of prescription drugs.
The committee’s decision comes after a week of hearings in which Vermonters gave impassioned testimony for and against the bill. Gov. Peter Shumlin called on the Legislature to pass the bill this year. Previous attempts have stalled in the Statehouse over the past decade.
Chittenden County Sen. Sally Fox, who vice-chairs the Health and Welfare Committee, said the bill approved on Friday aims to ensure that the physician-assisted practice would not be abused.
“Suffice it to say the bill is very tightly drafted,” she said. “It addresses pretty much any objection that people would have about issues of coercion or duress, or whether or not people would be able to make an informed decision about requesting the medication people would need in order to accomplish their dignified death.”
The bill is based on a law passed in Oregon in 1998. Oregon lawmakers who visited the committee this past week convinced Sen. Anthony Pollina, P/D-Washington, that the legislation is ultimately a good idea.
“The more we learned about what’s gone on in Oregon since 1998, the more I felt the law that was implemented there has worked the way it’s intended to,” he said. “There was not any sort of slippery slope … that would indicate people would fall prey to a broader proposal. That hasn’t happened in Oregon, and there’s no indication that would happen here.”
Pollina, who sits on Health and Welfare, said that very few Oregon residents have actually used the law, and he expects the same to hold true for Vermont if such legislation is enacted.
“I know this bill is an important bill that means a lot to a lot of people, but it will impact a small number of Vermonters, most of whom are already in hospice and see this as a way to alleviate a problem,” he said.
The bill will move to the House Judiciary Committee next week, where it will be taken up by less ardent supporters of the proposal.
This story was updated at 6:10 p.m. on Feb. 1, 2013, to include a statement from Sen. Sally Fox, D-Chittenden. Reporter Alicia Freese contributed that reporting.
