A legislative proposal that would’ve enabled doctors to prescribe medication to a terminally ill patient in Connecticut to end his or her life will not go forward.
Tuesday was the deadline for the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee to act on the aid in dying legislation, but a “significant majority” of the committee was “uncomfortable” advancing the bill, said Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, the committee’s co-chair.
The legislation would apply to mentally competent patients who have less than six months to live. Those on all sides of the issue agree its now unlikely to come up for a vote before the legislative session concludes in June.
“There are certain folks who outright object to the idea of it on moral, religious or other grounds,” Stafstrom said by phone Wednesday. “The other thing, and what’s important for the judiciary committee, is, as drafted, the bill seemed to have unintended legal consequences.”
The state’s division of criminal justice said in testimony that the bill “effectively mandates the falsification of death certificates under certain circumstances,” by allowing the signer of a death certificate to list the qualified patient’s underlying terminal illness as the cause of death as opposed to the medication used to end his or her life.
That would pose a problem for the criminal justice system, the division said, when faced with cases involving a potential murder prosecution if the cause of death is not accurately reported on a death certificate.
Under the bill, a person would be guilty of murder if he or she willfully altered or forged a request for aid in dying or coerced someone to complete such a request.
But...
from News https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Aid-in-dying-proposal-won-t-go-forward-16118158.php
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