In a dramatic end, the Maryland Senate was deadlocked in a 23-23 on their physician-assisted suicide bill when it came time for the last senator to vote on March 27, 2019.

Sen. Obie Patterson decided not to cast a vote which effectively killed the bill that needed a majority vote to pass.

Sen. Patterson told reporters that “I researched it, I talked with folks and my decision today was not to cast a vote. But I think I did my job. I did not relinquish my responsibility to thoroughly review all of the concerns I had about the bill. At the end of the day, I felt I could not cast a vote.”

This fourth attempt in Maryland to pass a physician-assisted suicide bill had just passed in the Maryland House of Delegates following “an intense and emotional debate that brought some lawmakers to tears”.

Although there was testimony on both sides with many personal stories, a Goucher College poll of people in Maryland showed 62% of those polled supported “allowing terminally ill adults to obtain medication to end their lives”. The Maryland State Medical Society that previously opposed assisted suicide bill had now changed its stance to “neutrality”.

Kim Callinan, CEO of the Compassion & Choices organization that promotes such legislation throughout the US had said that “with baby boomers beginning to reach retirement age, they are dealing with deaths of their parents and peers, causing them to rethink their views on death experiences allowing terminally ill adults to obtain medication to end their lives.”

Disability advocates were forced to wait to testify until all witnesses in favor of the bill testified, effectively blocking those advocates who had to leave.

LESSON ONE: DON’T GIVE UP EDUCATING  LEGISLATORS AND THE PUBLIC ON THE FACTS AND DANGERS OF ASSISTED SUICIDE

Although it seemed that the bill would pass in the Senate, all the efforts by disability advocates, pro-life people, medical professionals, concerned Maryland residents, etc. to write, speak and even march about the facts and dangers of physician-assisted suicide apparently had an effect.

When the bill was sent to a Senate committee to evaluate before being sent to the entire Senate for final passage, members of the committee now had reservations about the assisted suicide bill itself. Committee chairman Senator Bobby Zirkin said the bill as introduced to the committee was “flawed to its core”, even though he said he didn’t want to stand in the way of terminally ill people “who are truly, truly at the end of their life and out of treatment options.”

The senate committee members “spent more than 7 hours hashing out dozens of proposed amendments to the bill” before agreeing to vote it out to the full senate with these changes requiring patients:

“Be at least 21 years old, a change from 18 in the original bill.

Have their diagnosis confirmed by their attending physician and a consulting physician. Those two physicians cannot be in the same practice or have a financial relationship

Ask for the prescription three times, including once in private with a doctor and with witnesses.

Undergo a mental health evaluation.”

The senators also set a stricter definition of who could qualify for assisted suicide, and removed the prescribing doctors’ immunity “from civil lawsuits related to prescribing the fatal drugs.”

Kim Callinan, CEO of Compassion & Choices said “the new drastically revised version of this bill includes troubling amendments that we know from our experience in other states will make the bill nearly impossible for patients to access.”

But as I noted in my previous blog on the assisted suicide bill, the Maryland Against Physician Assisted Suicide coalition correctly noted that even with the revisions, the bill “does not offer sufficient protection of those in our system of health care who are most vulnerable to abuse” and should not be passed.

After the bill died in the senate, one senator said he would sponsor yet another assisted suicide bill sometime in the future.

LESSON TWO: REVIEW THE RESULTS

As the Baltimore Sun article on the defeat of the assisted suicide bill noted:

“Some senators who voted against the bill recalled the General Assembly’s action a few years ago to abolish the death penalty — in part on the grounds that life is precious, even the life of a convicted criminal.

Sen. Michael Hough, a Frederick County Republican, said that his vote in favor of keeping the death penalty has haunted him. He pledged to himself that if he ever faced a vote like that again, “I would err on the side of life.”

Others questioned the logic of allowing doctors, who they see as people who save lives, to participate in a process that leads to death.

“There are no do-overs in this type of law,” said Sen. Bryan Simonaire… “Doctors have and will continue to make mistakes and miscalculations. They are humans. Once a life is taken, it is final.” (All emphasis added)

We may not always know what resonates with a legislator charged with representing his or her district but it is an awesome responsibility to make laws involving life or death decisions. That decision should not just be based on polls or horrific fears about death.

LESSON THREE: REACH OUT TO ALL GROUPS AND PEOPLE

None of us who oppose assisted suicide has the power, money or media support that Compassion and Choices has. But when we band together and use all our personal stories as well as the moral, legal, disability and medical perspectives against assisted suicide, we can win state by state and even educate the public nationally.

Our goal should not only be about defeating assisted suicide and upholding truly ethical healthcare but also to offer hope and support to improve the lives of all people experiencing suicidal despair, whether or not they are terminally ill.