Friday, June 12, 2020

Massachusetts: Assisted Suicide Bill Timing "Wrong"

To view full press release on Not Dead Yet, click here.                   


John Kelly
Second Thoughts Massachusetts issues the following statement in opposition to the favorable report given by the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health to Bill S. 2745, legislation that would legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts.
Assisted suicide legislation sends a message of ‘better dead than disabled’ while completely immunizing doctors, heirs, and caregivers who can encourage or even engineer a person’s death without fear of prosecution,” said Second Thoughts Director John B. Kelly.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Virginia: "Patient-Directed Suicide Has Morphed into Family-Determined Suicide"

Thomas Eppes, M.D.
This article, published as a letter to the editor in 2018, is nonetheless timely today. - Margaret Dore.* 

Recently the effort to legalize physician-assisted suicide has ramped up in Virginia. For 2,500 years, medicine has claimed the role of healer, but this dangerous public policy would change that by requiring a doctor’s participation in a patient’s demise .

Patients should never be conflicted about which role their physician plays.

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Minnesota Website Update

Minnesota State Capitol
The 2019-2020 Minnesota Legislative Session features three bills seeking to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, as those terms are traditionally defined. The bills are HF 2152SF 2286 and SF 2487. For more information, see bill histories herehere and here.
On September 11, 2019, there was an informational meeting in the House Committee on Health and Human Services regarding HF 2152. No other activity is indicated. Presumably, there will be similar bills next session.

For information about similar bills in prior years, go to Choice is an Illusion Minnesota.

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Massachusetts Euthanasia Bills Have Reportedly Moved Out of Committee

State House
According to unconfirmed sources, the Massachusetts "End of Life Options Act," seeking to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, has advanced out of the Joint Committee on Public Health to the Healthcare Finance Committee (S. 1208/H. 1926).

To learn more about problems with the Act, please see the legal/policy analysis below. If you have further information as to the exact status of the bills, please write me at margaretdore@nmargaretdore.com Thank you.

Margaret Dore, Esq.


Thursday, April 30, 2020

Assisted Suicide Bill HB 5420 Dead for Now

Stephen Mendelsohn
Stephen Mendelsohn:
We still need to be concerned about a special session, but for now, 8 years with no bill passing a single committee.
Story below courtesy of Connecticut News Junkie:

HARTFORD, CT — They never expected it to end like this, but legislative leaders decided Monday that it’s not safe for them to return to the state Capitol before the constitutional adjournment of May 6.

Friday, April 24, 2020

New Jersey Motion for Reconsideration

Margaret Dore
To view Dore's brief as submitted, click here.

I.   RELIEF REQUESTED

Margaret Dore moves for reconsideration of the Court’s order dated April 1, 2020, which upheld the constitutionality of the Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act.[1]

II. THE ACT MUST BE SET ASIDE

The Court did not reach the Act’s violation of the object in title rule, which is dispositive to set the Act aside. The Court should reach this issue now to overturn the Act.

The Court’s order states that Dore asked the Court to declare the Act unconstitutional “on grounds not asserted by plaintiffs.”[2] The plaintiffs, did, however, ask the Court to rule on the issue, stating:
Ms. Dore’s brief should be considered by the Court since if the law is unconstitutional under the single object rule, it should be the Court’s responsibility to raise that issue sua sponte even if not raised by Ms. Dore or the Plaintiffs.[3]
The Legislature understood that it was enacting a strictly voluntary law limited to assisted suicide for dying patients.[4] The prior judge expressed a similar view. See, for example, the transcript from the hearing on August 14, 2019 (“This case is not about euthanasia”).[5]

This case, however, is about euthanasia. The Act is also not limited to dying people. Patient voluntariness is allowed, but not required. These are material facts not disclosed by the Act’s title and related findings. The Act is unconstitutional and must be set aside.