Colorado Votes Against Assisted Suicide

(Reuters) - After 10 hours of emotional testimony and debate, Colorado lawmakers late on Friday voted down a proposed assisted-suicide law that would have allowed terminally-ill patients to end their lives with prescription drugs.

By an 8-to-5 bipartisan vote, the so-called "Death with Dignity" bill was rejected by the Public Health and Human Services Committee in the state's House of Representatives. The measure was sponsored by two Democratic lawmakers.

"Supporting a concept and a bill are two different things," said committee chairwoman Dianne Primavera, a Democrat, during the hearing.

The right-to-die movement gained momentum last year after Brittany Maynard - a 29-year-old California woman with terminal brain cancer - went public with her move to Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, to end her life. 

The Colorado proposal would have required two physicians to verify that the patient is terminal, had made both verbal and written statements of their intentions, and was able to self-administer the lethal medications.

Hundreds packed the committee room in Denver, as lawmakers heard testimony from both advocates and opponents of the measure.

Anita Cameron, who said she suffers from multiple disabilities, told the panel that the proposal lacked adequate safeguards.

"Doctors often make mistakes on whether someone is terminal or not," she said, adding that her mother was told six years ago that she had just six months to live.

Lawmakers also heard testimony from a retired Colorado physician, Charles Hatchette, who made a video in support of the measure shortly before he died from complications of Lou Gehrig's disease last month.

"There is more to life than just extending its length," Hatchette said on the video played for lawmakers.

Oregon, Montana, Washington, New Mexico and Vermont allow some form of assisted suicide, and similar legislation is pending in several other states.

A poll conducted last month by Colorado pollster Talmey-Drake Research showed 68 percent of state residents surveyed favored the bill.  

On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned that country's ban on assisted suicide.

(Reuters)

If Colorado can vote down assisted suicide so can NY, and NJ!

call your legislator today and tell them to vote against assisted suicide.

if your from NJ click here to find your senator

Washington State Assisted "Suicides" Increase 17% In A Year

from the official report

The number of Washington state residents who died of physician-assisted "suicide" rose to 83 in 2012, up from 70 in 2011, 51 in 2010 and 36 in 2009, when the state’s Death With Dignity Act took effect.

This is an overall increase of 130% since 2009 in the most north-west US state outside Alaska.
The Washington State Department of Health reported in May that 121 patients requested and received lethal doses of drugs in 2012.

The vast majority of the terminally ill patients who received life-ending drugs feared loss of autonomy, dignity and ability to participate in activities that make life enjoyable.
97% were white, 82% had at least some college education and 73% of the patients had cancer, said the report.
Last year I highlighted the huge increase in deaths from assisted "suicide" in Oregon and Switzerland of 450% and 700% respectively over ten years as further evidence of the incremental extension that inevitably follows any change in the law.

In the Netherlands euthanasia numbers have increased from 15-20% per year since 2006 and in neighbouring Belgium they have increased 509% in the ten years between 2003 and 2012.

more "suicides" but less oversight!

Washington is now showing the same pattern with almost a 130% increase in three years.

Careful examination of the Washington report also reveals that:
• Only 3 of the 121 people who were prescribed a lethal dose were given a psychiatric evaluation.

• One person died 150 weeks after receiving the lethal dose while 17 of the participants died more than 6 months after receiving the lethal dose.

• The physician who prescribed the lethal dose was present only five times during ingestion.

• One person died 16 hours after taking the lethal dose.

Margaret Dore, a Washington State attorney, highlights other causes for concern. She argues that the demographics of those who ingested the lethal drugs – ‘older people with money’ – are a prime target for abuse.
The report also gives no information as to whether all of the 83 people who died after ingesting the lethal dose took it voluntarily but merely records  the fact of ‘ingestion’.

Assisted "suicide" thankfully remains illegal in Britain and we see only a small trickle of 15-20 Britons per year going to the Dignitas facility in Zurich to end their lives.

But with an Oregon/Washington- type law we would see 1,200 deaths annually.

It is no wonder that over 100 attempts to legalise assisted suicide in other US states have failed over the last 15 years and that Oregon and Washington remain the only states to have legalised the practice on the basis of a referendum.

Let’s not go there.
(LifeNews.com) Note: Dr. Peter Saunders is a doctor and the CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a British organization with 4,500 doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. This article originally appeared on his blog. He is also associated with the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK.