Aid-in-dying bill ‘compassionate’

To the editor,

I’m responding to a March 24 opinion piece “CT’s aid-in-dying bill has foundation of abusive practices.”

I concur with the end-of-life care advocacy group Compassion & Choices that it’s inappropriate to compare someone who’s suicidal, but isn’t terminally ill, with an adult who has “an incurable condition” that two physicians estimate “will produce death within six months,” as Connecticut’s medical aid-in-dying bill (HB 6425) would require.

The American Association of Suicidology, a suicide prevention, medical research association whose membership includes mental health and public health professionals, has concluded:

“(S)uicide and physician aid in dying are conceptually, medically, and legally different phenomena … including intention, absence of physical self-violence, the physician’s assessment that the patient’s choice is not distorted by mental illness, a personal view of self-preservation versus self-destruction, and by the fact that the person who has requested aid in dying does not typically die alone and in despair, but, most frequently, where they wish, at home, with the comfort of his or her family.”

The Journal of Medical Ethics has concluded that there is “no evidence of heightened risk” involving Oregon’s 1994 medical aid-in-dying law, the model for HB 6425.

A New England Journal of Medicine research article concluded that there are “no substantial cost savings” for choosing medical aid in dying over other end-of-life care treatments. The reality is 95 percent of terminally ill individuals who opt for medical aid in dying in Oregon are already enrolled in relatively inexpensive hospice care.

I watched my dad die in great pain from cancer. That’s why I recently testified in support of HB 6425, and I thank our local state Sen. Alex Kasser (D-Greenwich, New Canaan, Stamford) and other Health Committee members for approving it. I urge the Legislature to pass this compassionate legislation.