Maine State Rep. Michelle Meyer (D-Eliot) introduced legislation in February, and carried over into the current emergency session last month, that would expand Maine’s assisted suicide program through an amendment to the 2019 Maine Death with Dignity Act.
If enacted, the measure would waive the current 17-day waiting period applicants currently face. On Friday, the legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee held a public hearing on her bill that would impact a controversial process.
“After five years of successful implementation, Maine’s Death with Dignity act has provided 218 Mainers with the control they wanted at the end of their lives. Since 2019, nine qualified people have died during the administrative waiting period because their bodies declined too rapidly,” said Rep. Meyer during her bill’s public hearing on Friday.
“Your patient is suffering as the waiting period becomes a cruel and unnecessary obstacle, rendering your patient a passive victim to a brutal disease process, stripping them of their dignity and a peaceful passing,” she added.
Meyer’s bill, LD 613, drew co-sponsorships from eight Democrats along with one Republican, Sen. Marianne Moore (R-Washington) and was considered in the Judiciary Committee. The Maine Wire reached out to Moore, asking why she decided to side with Democrats on the bill, but she did not immediately respond.
The bill would allow a physician to waive the legally mandated waiting period between a patient qualifying for assisted suicide and actually receiving the self-administered poison prescribed by their physician.
Under the current Death with Dignity Act, which passed into law during Gov. Janet Mills’ (D-Maine) first year in office, patients only qualify for assisted suicide if they have a terminal illness with less than six months to live as verified by two doctors, are deemed mentally sound, and submit a signed and witnessed request.
In addition, a 15-day waiting period must elapse between an oral request and a written request, and an additional 48 hours must pass between the written request and the actual prescription of the poison, allowing the patients time to reconsider.
Meyer’s bill would essentially eliminate that requirement.
During her testimony, she asserted that 218 Mainers have taken their own lives through the program and lamented that nine qualifying Mainers died during the waiting period, claiming that the deaths robbed those nine people of their dignity.
Her testimony notably did not mention how many, if any, Mainers have applied for the program but decided not to go through with the suicide during the waiting period.
The public hearing drew numerous testimonies, both in person and online, though just one person appeared to testify against the bill in person. The majority of testimonies, including 94 submitted letters, were from proponents of the measure, often citing their own or their relatives’ terminal illnesses. Some in favor were also medical professionals.
“The current mandatory waiting period can cause unnecessary suffering and anxiety
for patients who are already facing the end of their lives. This bill is a matter of
compassion and respect for patient autonomy. It allows physicians to provide the best
possible care, tailored to the unique needs of each individual,” said Cynthia Cushing of Readfield.
“Our Associations believe this bill conforms to our core patient-centered care principles,
which leave important medical decisions to patients and their doctors. For terminally ill
patients facing unbearable pain, rigid waiting periods can impose unnecessary suffering.
This bill enables physicians to act in accordance with the interests of qualified patients by waiving waiting periods when time is of the essence. By doing so, we honor the will of individuals to make personal decisions about their end-of-life care without delay,” said Patty Hymanson, speaking on behalf of the Maine Medical and Maine Osteopathic Associations.
But not everyone agreed.
“I’m not here with all the answers either, but just offer that the Maine legislative focus on the death culture has just such a much greater impact than you may know,” said Maine Right to Life Executive Director and former Republican representative Michael McClellan speaking in person against the bill.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland joined McLellan with written testimony against the bill.
“To sanction the taking of innocent human life is to contradict a primary purpose of law in an ordered society. The Maine law permitting assisted suicide demeans the lives of vulnerable patients and exposes them to exploitation by those who feel they are better off dead. The voiceless or marginalized in our society — the poor, the frail elderly, racial minorities, millions of people who lack health insurance – are the first to feel pressure to die,” said the diocese.
The few voices in opposition to the bill, however, were vastly outnumbered by its seeming legion of staunch supporters.
Meyer’s proposal appears to be another step on a slippery slope toward ever more relaxed and permissive assisted suicide policies. The example set by Canada’s assisted suicide program makes the “slippery slope” argument seem somewhat more than just a hypothetical in this case.
Canada’s program began, similar to Maine’s, by applying only to those with “reasonably foreseeable” deaths. That criterion has been steadily relaxed to allow for Canadians suffering from non-life-threatening chronic ailments. Canada is currently on track to extend its assisted suicide program to people suffering from mental health ailments as 2027.
Update: Sen. Marianne Moore (R-Washington) responded after publication of this story with a version of her testimony on the bill. You can read that here:
