Time running short for ‘aid-in-dying’ bill
With just a month left in the legislative session, supporters of a bill that would allow terminally ill patients to determine when they might die is in a race with the calendar.
After clearing the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee in a 22-9 vote last month, the bill, which outlines safeguards and responsibilities for physicians and patients, is likely to get referred to the Judiciary Committee, where the bill expired without a vote last year amid bipartisan opposition.
This year, proponents of the aid-in-dying bill think they have some new momentum that maybe, for the first time since the legislation was introduced back in 1994, there is hope for people who want to avoid the final stages of terminal illness and end their lives while there is still some quality.
Proponents will likely find out early next week on the review in the law-writing Judiciary Committee, where supporters including state Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, co-chairman of the Public Health Committee, plan to convince colleagues on the 39-member panel to approve it and send it to the floor of the Senate.
“There are parts of the bill that are very crucial, from a legal perspective,” said Anwar, a physician. In recent years, hundreds of people have provided testimony on the legislation and some of them came to the end of their lives without legislative action, including Kim Hoffman, 59, of Glastonbury who died in January after an eight-anda-half-year battle with ovarian cancer.
“This is one of the bills that nearly every year we have individuals like Ms. Hoffman, who plead to try to get the Connecticut legislature to have some recognition, empathy and understanding of their pain and suffering,” Anwar said. “There are many more than that who died. I hope my colleagues in the Judiciary Committee will have the kindness to listen. It is the dying wish for so many people who say that while they might not make it, they want to make sure others don’t suffer, and they’re requesting us as a state to do the right thing.”
Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday said he supports aid-in-dying legislation, but it first has to pass the Senate and House before it reaches his desk. In recent years, the Connecticut State Medical Society has shifted from opposing the legislation, to supporting the individual decisions of doctors. “All humans are hard-wired to protect everyone’s life, especially doctors, whose training is about saving lives,” said Anwar, noting that with the legal “guardrails” in the legislation, only those patients whose doctors believe they have six months or less to live would be eligible.
Only a tiny percentage of patients would fall outside of current palliative and hospice care protocols, Awar stressed. “This is an important bill,” he said. “Many people have spoken over hundreds of hours, and I hope my colleagues will be thoughtful rather than vote based on internal biases.”
State Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, co-chairman of the Judiciary Commission, said Friday that in 2021, it was bipartisan opposition in the panel that showed there wasn’t enough support to bring it to a committee debate and vote. “Last year, when we caucused the bill and did a vote count, it was short votes by a pretty clear margin, with no Republican support and a very mixed reaction from Democrats. If it comes again we’ll likely caucus it again.”
Sen. Will Haskell, a member of both the Judiciary and Public Health committees, said Friday that when he was first elected in 2018, he hadn’t thought about aid-in-dying. “It’s one of those things that you get to know through your constituents,” he said. “We have let these people down by not passing aid-in-dying in previous legislative sessions. This really deserves a vote, one way or the other, in Judiciary.”