Medically assisted suicide bill in Maryland faces uncertain future

Fearing the bill won’t have enough votes to pass, Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson said Friday that legislation to allow medically assisted suicide may meet its end in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

“This is not a bill that we’re going to be twisting arms on,” Ferguson, a Baltimore City Democrat, said at a news conference Friday morning.

“This is one where it’s deeply personal, and people are taking a very personal look. And so we’ll want to know where the votes are before things move forward, but it’s going to be very tight, should it move forward.”

Sponsored in the Senate by Judicial Proceedings Committee Vice Chair Jeff Waldstreicher, a Montgomery County Democrat, the End of Life Option Act would allow terminally ill Maryland residents to ask to undergo medically assisted suicide if they are capable of making their own medical decisions, still have the ability to self-administer medication and are projected to die within six months.

Patients would need to first orally request the procedure, and then submit a written request that they and two witnesses must sign. Patients would undergo a 15-day waiting period after making their oral request and at least a two-day waiting period after submitting their written request.

They would then have to make a second oral request after the waiting periods. The second oral request would have to be made with no witnesses to ensure the patient is not being coerced into going through with the procedure.

Physicians would be protected from civil and criminal prosecution for prescribing the medication. Their participation in the process would be voluntary.

Advocates for the bill understand it’s a tough vote to make, but push in honor of those who have suffered during the legislation’s long history in the General

Assembly.

Donna Smith, Maryland campaign director for Compassion & Choices Action Network, said that over a dozen of her volunteers “who spent their last days walking the halls trying to get this bill passed” have died in the nine-year fight to pass the legislation.

“We understand this is a very personal issue for lawmakers,” said Smith. “But it is the most deeply personal issue for terminally ill Marylanders like Baltimore resident Diane Kraus and Silver Spring resident Lynn Cave.

They are counting on lawmakers to pass the End-of-Life Option Act this year because they may not be around next year.”

The bill nearly passed out of the Senate in 2019, but was one vote short. In an interview ahead of the 2024 legislative session, Ferguson said he believed it would have enough votes to pass this year.

Both the Senate and the House versions of the bill had hearings earlier this month. Neither has received a committee vote that would move the legislation to the floor for debate.

Ferguson said he is having conversations with members of his chamber regularly to assess where they fall on the issue.

“If I don’t think that there are enough votes on the floor to pass the bill, I don’t think we will have [the Judicial Proceedings Committee] vote the bill,” he said Friday.

With 45 days remaining in Maryland’s 90-day legislative session, the tide could turn for the bill.

But Ferguson is proceeding with caution, noting that it’s a difficult topic for many lawmakers to mull over.

However, he also said that he thinks it’s “the right way to go for Maryland with the right protections in place.”

“I voted for it previously,” said the Senate president. “But I do reasonably and rationally understand why somebody would be on the other side of it, and so I want to know where people are and why they are there.”