Aid-in-dying proposal won’t go forward

State lawmakers ‘uncomfortable’ moving the bill ahead

A legislative proposal that would’ve enabled doctors to prescribe medication to a terminally ill Connecticut patient to end his or her life will not go forward.

Tuesday was the deadline for the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee to act on the aid-in-dying legislation, but a “significant majority” of the committee was “uncomfortable” advancing the bill, said state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, DBridgeport, the committee’s co-chair.

The legislation would apply to mentally competent patients who have less than six months to live. Those on all sides of the issue agree its now unlikely to come up for a vote before the legislative session concludes in June.

“There are certain folks who outright object to the idea of it on moral, religious or other grounds,” Stafstrom said by phone Wednesday. “The other thing, and what’s important for the judiciary committee, is, as drafted, the bill seemed to have unintended legal consequences.”

The state’s division of criminal justice said in testimony that the bill “effectively mandates the falsification of death certificates under certain circumstances,” by allowing the signer of a death certificate to list the qualified patient’s underlying terminal illness as the cause of death as opposed to the medication used to end his or her life.

That would pose a problem for the criminal justice system, the division said, when faced with cases involving a potential murder prosecution if the cause of death is not accurately reported on a death certificate.

Under the bill, a person would be guilty of murder if he or she willfully altered or forged a request for aid in dying or coerced someone to complete such a request.

But those actions don’t cause death, rather they potentially offer evidence of intent to kill, thus removing the “causation requirement” that is essential to any murder charge, the criminal justice division said, recommending that section be deleted.

“Given the legal uncertainty and the folks who just outright object to the concept all together, the votes were clearly not there to move the bill out of committee,” Stafstrom said.

The judiciary committee also had limited time to work through the legal implications of the bill, Stafstrom said, receiving it from the Public Health Committee, which advanced it by a 24-9 vote, one week before members had to act.

State legislators have considered aid-in-dying legislation at least 14 times since 1994, according to the Harford Courant.

A longtime backer of the proposal, Tim Appleton, Connecticut campaign director for Compassion & Choices, said in a statement Wednesday that proponents believe they had the bipartisan support to pass the bill this year.

“We are bitterly disappointed by this outcome,” Appleton said. “But our disappointment does not come close to that of terminally ill advocates who had the courage to share their stories, and those around the state who are desperate for this option now.”

Appleton thanked Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, DWestport, who co-chairs the public health committee, for his leadership on the bill and the members of the committee for their support.

As is the case each time the bill fails to move forward, he said, “‘next year’ will simply be too late for some.”

Sen. Will Haskell, DWestport, said he just spoke with a terminally ill patient suffering from “terrible pain who doesn’t want to put themselves or their family through a few more weeks of this.”

“I can’t tell them with a straight face that we’ll fight for it next year because they’re not going to be here next year,” Haskell said.

The bill was “carefully”constructed to prevent any misuse and abuse, he said, adding the nine other states and the District of Columbia, which have passed similiar legislation, have “figured out a way” to reconcile legal concerns.

The inaction by the judiciary committee “means Connecticut’s most vulnerable: people with disabilities, the elderly, people of color, and those with life-threatening illness, are protected from the dangers and discrimination inherent to assisted suicide laws,” Matt Vallière, executive director of Patients Rights Action Fund, which has lobbied against the issue across the country, said in a statement.

“Connecticut’s resources should be spent increasing access to quality medical care, rather than pushing suicide, especially in the midst of a pandemic,” Vallière said.