PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — A potential law, giving terminally ill patients the option to end their lives through the use of medication, needs more safeguards according to the Peoria County Coroner.
“The unfortunate thing is the way this bill is written, we wouldn’t even be notified or called into that at all, which is the unfortunate thing,” he said.
The proposal, which passed out of the General Assembly earlier this month, is now on the desk of Gov. JB Pritzker, waiting his signature to make it a law. He has not indicated publicly whether he will sign the measure or not.
Tessa Mahoney, the executive director of the Central Illinois Agency of Aging, said she understands both sides, but it can be difficult to determine if someone truly has only six months or less to live.
“So if somebody goes past six months what happens then… what does the process look like now?” she said.
Her agency has no stance on the bill, but she understands why some might want that choice.
It passed with a close vote in the Senate and House. Some, like state Rep. Bill Hauter of Morton, are opposed to the measure. State Sen. Linda Holmes, a suburban Chicago Democrat, led the bill from start to finish, after seeing her parents endure long and painful deaths due to cancer.
Diane Slezak of the group Aging Options said it’s a very multifaceted situation. She recounted a situation where her 99-year-old grandmother was being asked to make very difficult choices.
Had she had the choice, Slezak said, “I’m not sure she would ever taken those drugs.”
Harwood said he’s not opposed to the concept of the bill but rather, the unintended of not having the option to investigate a death.
“As Coroners, we are sworn to accurately determine cause and manner of death. SB 1950 introduces restrictions that prevent coroners from fulfilling that oath. This bill places families, investigators, and public health agencies at a real disadvantage,” he said in a Facebook post earlier this week.
Normally, coroners are called whenever there is a death in their county. But SB 1950 cuts them out of that loop. That, Harwood said, is not good.
“We’re not opposed to it whatsoever from a standpoint of whether one corner thinks it’s right or wrong that conversation’s not even been had,” he said. “We want to make sure that there’s oversight by a legal medical death investigator into these types of death.”
It’s not just that his office can’t accurately track the types and manner of death which are then used in epidemiological trends, but it also blocks the coroner’s office from getting more information regarding a death.
When someone terminally ill would choose death inducing medication, the persons cause of death would be written as “natural causes” according to Harwood.
‘We’re not asking to take the terminal condition even out of out of the picture either. But we do want the actual cause of death included in that terminology.,” he said.
Harwood is acting as the spokesperson for the Illinois Coroner’s and Medical Association which represents all counties in Illinois on this issue. At no point, he said, were coroners or forensic pathologists, or death investigation professionals consulted regarding the bill.
“We have a lot of coroners across the state of Illinois with superior education that can come into this conversation, and that’s what we’re asking for,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any coroner across the state that is imminently opposed to the bill entirely. We just want it to be set correctly so we have the option to investigate if we need to serve.”
All this into consideration, Harwood is urging Pritzker to either veto the bill or an amendatory veto, bringing people back to Springfield to continue discussions on the measure.
For the Aging Agencies, they said they will remain neutral but highly recommend the state to increase caregiver support.
“What we’re really seeing across Illinois is caregivers who are saying they need clearer information, better navigation support and more resources when a loved one is seriously or terminally ill,” said Mahoney.
Whether we’re talking hospice, palliative care, or general advanced planning, caregivers need strong support systems,” she said.i