Assisted suicide still divisive in Mass.
Poll shows support has grown, however
Nearly 10 years after a ballot question contemplating medically assisted suicide in Massachusetts narrowly failed, the issue is just as contentious as before, despite 2020 poll numbers suggesting 70% of Bay Staters support it.
“These two bills are critically important and they would ensure that those who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness can choose to end their lives without deriving further pain and suffering,” said state Sen. Joan Lovely, D-Salem, before referencing the aforementioned Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll.
Throughout a Joint Committee on Public Health hearing Friday that lasted several hours, committee members heard testimony from health care professionals, patients, widowers, clergy, disability rights activists and policy experts, all on different sides of the issue.
In 2012, the measure was defeated on ballots by a razor-thin margin: 51% opposed it and 49% were in favor. Currently, nine states, including Vermont, Maine, California and Oregon, plus Washington, D.C., allow those with terminal diagnoses and given less than six months to live to end their lives with medications. Since then, the bill has become more specific, defining, for example, why someone would be considered terminally ill.
Some of those in favor of enacting similar legislation in Massachusetts were relatives or friends of loved ones who suffered from terminal illnesses. Dan Diaz testified in support of the bill in memory of his late wife, Brittany Maynard, 29, who generated national media attention when she moved to Oregon to end her life this way.
“I have lived through this process. I’ve seen it firsthand with all of the rigid safeguards and protections that are in place,” he said, though he lamented the fact that the couple had to move from California to Oregon for Maynard to get her wish, because California did not allow the practice at the time. He also challenged the claim others made in the hearing that doctors can always control dying patients’ pain. “I can line up dozens of physicians and hospice care nurses who will refute such an arrogant claim,” he said.
Several doctors and nurses who work with terminally ill patients also spoke in favor of the legislation. Dr. David Grube, who practices in Oregon, said that “so many of the opponent’s fears and allegations are just not real.” He added that hospice and palliative care measures are still heavily utilized there as an alternative. “These individuals are all going to die, but they do not need to suffer,” he said.
Those opposed to the measure included those whose family members well outlived their expected prognoses. Anita Cameron, with the disability rights group Not Dead Yet, recalled how her mother outlived her terminal diagnosis of COPD by 12 years.The bills “will put sick people, seniors and disabled people especially at risk due to the view of doctors that disabled people have a lower quality of life, therefore, leading them to devalue our lives,” she said.
Others who opposed the measure included members of the Catholic Church, which “has always strongly opposed physician-assisted suicide, and always upheld the dignity of human life,” said James Driscoll, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference. “The Church teaches that life itself is a gift from God, and should both be nurtured and cared for until natural death.”