In Legislatures
A large part of improving your right to choice at the end of life rests within the scope of the law. The Compassion & Choices Action Network legislative team works to monitor, shape, expand, change and create our laws to accommodate a full range of options at the end of life. This is your opportunity to make a difference! Lawmakers want to know what their constituents think about prospective laws.
Compassion & Choices Action Network is currently working to:
1. Legalize aid in dying, passing laws like Oregon’s in other states.
2. Allow patient-directed pain medication to alleviate suffering.
3. Defend and strengthen living wills and advance directives.
4. Require continuing medical education in pain management and palliative care.
Financial Support
Financial Support for direct lobbying efforts comes from non-deductible donations to Compassion & Choices Action Network (a 501(c)(4) organization).
> Make a donation to Compassion & Choices Action Network.
Current Legislative Efforts
Washington Aid-in-Dying Initiative: A broad coalition of Compassion & Choices affiliates, physicians, nurses, hospice patients, organizations and concerned residents is proposing an initiative for the 2008 ballot. This measure will give tremendous peace of mind to terminally ill patients who face the prospect of intolerable suffering. Specifically, this initiative would allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults in Washington State with six months or less to live the legal choice to access and self-administer life-ending medication under strict medical supervision.
Status: Gathering signatures to qualify the initiative for the November 2008 ballot.
>Learn more about the ballot initiative at the It's My Decision Web site
California Right to Know End-of-Life Options Act:
AB 2747 cleared its first hurdle on April 29, 2008, with a 7-3 vote in favor by the California Assembly Judiciary Committee.
The bill requires a physician to provide counsel on the range of care options available, upon a dying patient’s request. These options include hospice care, voluntary stopping eating and drinking, refusal or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatments, palliative care and palliative sedation.
A wide range of witnesses offered supportive testimony, including retired internist Alan Carpenter; Mary Stompe, daughter of a deceased cancer patient; the California Nurses Association; the California Psychological Association; the Gray Panthers; and Compassion & Choices.
> Learn more about the Right to Know Act.
California Compassionate Choices Act: One day before the June 8 deadline in the Assembly, lawmakers have declined to bring AB 374 to a vote. The legislation would have given terminally ill Californians the option to request life-ending medications from a physician to hasten an impending death.
Assembly members Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez co-authored the bill and championed the cause valiantly. Berg’s Chief of Staff Will Shuck told the Sacramento Bee, “The people are there, and the politicians aren’t.”
The bill is shelved for the year but could be taken up again in 2008.
> More on upcoming California legislation soon to come
> Learn more about the California Compassionate Choices Act on the California chapter Web site.
Wisconsin Death with Dignity: Senate Bill 151, sponsored by Sen. Fred Risser and Rep. Frank Boyle, is modeled on the Oregon law.
The Death with Dignity Act would allow terminally ill patients with six months or less to live to request life-ending drugs from their physicians that they would then self-administer to obtain a peaceful death. As with the Oregon law, patients would be submitted to safeguards. For example, they would be required to first make the request verbally and then in a written statement signed before a minimum of three witnesses.
Wisconsin Democrats have supported such a bill for 16 years, but this is the first hearing on an aid-in-dying bill in a decade.
Status: Went to a Senate health committee hearing in January.
Arizona Aid in Dying Bill: Also similar to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, the proposed Arizona measure would allow terminally ill, mentally competent people the right to direct their dying by obtaining medications from their physician to enable the patient to achieve a peaceful death.
Status: Currently in the House Rules Committee.
Health Decision Restriction Bills
Several states are considering legislation that would enable government to mandate health care at the end of life. These bills make a presumption in favor of feeding tubes and require a determination of clear and convincing evidence to allow withdrawal of nutrition and hydration. Some even take the threat to the next extreme, by requiring an individual to record in writing a desire for withdrawal of treatment.
> Is there a Call to Action in your state? Visit the Compassion & Choices Action Network to find out.
> To learn more about these restrictions, click here.
New York
We are making progress in the fight to secure appropriate pain care at the end of life in New York—and there's more to come! Two bills supported by Compassion & Choices Action Network are currently under consideration. These bills would establish mandatory continuing education for medical professionals on pain management and provide a “safe harbor" for physicians who provide pain management consistent with clinical standards.
> For an update on this issue, please visit the Compassion & Choices Action Network.
Milestones in Policy Change
1994 Voters approve Oregon’s aid in dying law. 2006 United States Supreme Court upholds law. Click here to learn more about the Oregon law.
2005 Vermont approves modernization of advance directive laws. Click here to learn more.
2006 American Public Health Association adopts policy on accurate terminology regarding aid in dying. Click here to learn more.
2007 American Medical Women's Association adopts progressive policy supporting aid in dying. Click here to read the full AMWA Position Text.
|
