Recently, we have seen a number of states considering legislation that would legalize PAS. Across the board these bills are very similar and do not provide even adequate protections for vulnerable populations such as the elderly and individuals with disabilities. Most recently we have seen action taken on dangerous bills in both New Jersey and...
Good news in the fight against PAS! Proponents have backed down and Maryland legislators have held off on filing a physician-assisted suicide bill this session. This is very likely due to an election year with legislators hesitant to take controversial votes. This is also an acknowledgement from proponents that there are strong arguments against this...
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...
We want to wish a happy New Year to all of our coalition members who have dedicated their time and talents to defeat physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in Maryland. As we kick-off 2018 and approach the new legislative session, we are once again expecting another fight with renewed momentum from those working in support of this dangerous...
As the Maryland General Assembly prepares to again debate whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide, there is a behind the scenes argument about how to refer to this practice – “Death with Dignity”? “Physician-Assisted Suicide”? “Aid in Dying”? “Doctor prescribed suicide”? What may seem trivial is actually remarkably important to truly understanding the impact of legalizing...
Over and over again, legislators hear arguments from PAS supporters that the legalization of physician-assisted suicide has not led to any documented cases of abuse. They further argue that PAS should be legalized because the legislation is full of safeguards, and because not that many people take advantage of the law anyway. However, the official...
Happy New Year! The 2017 session of the Maryland General Assembly is about to start and we again expect legislation that seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide to be introduced. We wanted to ensure our allies were aware of the important dates of the upcoming legislative session, as well as share some helpful resources as we...
During 2016, our supporters across the state did amazing work to ensure that legislation seeking to legalize physician-assisted suicide was not passed by the General Assembly. After the session was over, we continued our work spreading the messages about why legalizing “death with dignity” in Maryland would be such a big mistake. Examples from Maryland...
Remember the tagline of those old Hair Club for Men advertisements, “I’m not just the president of Hair Club for Men, I’m also a client!”? We were reminded of those cheesy 80’s TV commercials when we saw this story out of Colorado last week: Proponents of successful medical aid-in-dying initiative push ahead with implementation. After Compassion...
With the Iowa State Legislature likely to debate legislation in 2017 that would legalize physician-assisted suicide, the state’s largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, thoroughly examined how the practice of PAS plays out in states where it is legal. What they found is not surprising: the implementation of PAS is nothing like Compassion & Choices...