WAMU Tackles Physician-Assisted Suicide

On Wednesday, WAMU Radio aired a segment tackling physician-assisted suicide (PAS). This comes on the heels of proponents in Maryland again filing legislation that would legalize PAS. The bill (HB 643 / SB 701) is the exact same deeply flawed legislation that our state lawmakers have rejected over and over again.

Katie Collins-Ihrke, Executive Director of Accessible Resources for Independence and a strong opponent of physician-assisted suicide, joined a panel on The Kojo Nnamdi Show Wednesday to share the widespread opposition to PAS. We urge you to listen to the segment in full here.

“Some people’s lives will be ended without their consent through mistakes and abuse. There are no safeguards that have ever been enacted or proposed that will prevent this outcome, which cannot be undone.” — Katie Collins-Ihrke

Last year, Maryland lawmakers went on the record and rejected this dangerous practice, yet out-of-state interests continue trying to push our state to legalize the practice. What we’ve been saying all along still stands: there is no way to fix this bill. There are no safeguards that can truly protect against the coercion and abuse of vulnerable populations. There is no legislative solution to the fact that doctors cannot accurately predict a 6-month terminal diagnosis. There is no way to account for the large, lethal doses of drugs that would go unused, nor any way to ensure those drugs don’t end up in the wrong hands and make our state’s prescription drug epidemic even worse. We could go on and on.

We need your help by reaching out to the members of the Maryland General Assembly who stood against this misguided policy last year and ask them to continue to stand strong.

Please take a moment right now and send the lawmakers who stood up against this bill a message! Click the button below to write to them today!