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Battleground Delaware

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UPDATE: Good news! The Delaware House adjoined for a 6 week budget break without passing a physician-assisted suicide bill. This is great news as we know Compassion and Choices expended many resources to get it passed. The fight isn’t over. We know they’ll be back in six weeks and we have to continue to keep up our efforts to make sure they don’t pass this dangerous bill.

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Efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide in our neighboring state of Delaware are strengthening, and Delawareans need opponents to engage and stop this dangerous bill from advancing. Legislators have voted the bill out of committee and we are now hearing that a re-drafted PAS bill could be brought to the floor of the House as early as this Thursday. This is the result of efforts from pro-PAS group, Compassion and Choices pouring money into the state as they attempt to secure a win this year and regain lost momentum after numerous states around the country have rejected similar legislation.

The PAS bill in Delaware is very similar to what we have seen fail in Maryland for the past 3 sessions.  As pointed out by T. Brian Callister in The News Journal this is simply bad policy.

“Once assisted suicide becomes a medical option, it will be the cheapest option and provide incentive for insurers to save money by denying treatment. I had two patients from Oregon and California, states which have legalized assisted suicide, who were denied treatment.”

This dangerous legislation, which is cut and pasted from the national Compassion and Choices playbook, has been pushed in states across the country including Maryland. The Delaware Medical Society has also voted to maintain its opposition to this PAS bill.  According to its President:

“We really feel that the way that we should be empowering our patients at the end of life is to provide the best care that we can to palliate and alleviate pain and suffering.  We feel physician assisted suicide is fundamentally inconsistent with our role as physicians and healers.”

We are still waiting to see if Maryland will have a PAS bill this session, but until then our neighbors in Delaware need our help now!

Please reach out to your friends and family in Delaware and have them call their State Representatives.  

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