VOTE: NO – Died In Committee
Status (overview) of bill:https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2019R1/Measures/Overview/HB2232
Committee assigned to bill:https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2019R1/Committees/HHC/Overview
This bill expands allowance to anyone diagnosed with a terminal disease to request drugs to end their life after a 90-day waiting period, and allows request at any time for those with less than six months to live.
Personal Choice and Responsibility
Terminal disease is a disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, produce or substantially contribute to a patient’s death. The prognosis of six months or less to live was a key component that voters passed in 1994, this bill eliminates that requirement. At least 90 days waiting period between the date a patient receives a terminal disease diagnosis and initial oral request for medication unless diagnosis results in death within six months. Allows administration of the deadly drug through IV or feeding tube and must be self-administered.
Limited Government
The self-administering of an IV or tube feeding will be hard to prove as most patient are cared for when on tube feeding, which may fill the courts with unlawful death suits
This bill also adds that only the person that has received a diagnosis of a Terminal disease is the person allowed to administrate life-ending drugs. If the patient is incapable of self-administrating then this bill or the right to die would not be legal, it would turn to the patients directive.
The six months to live is also a key part of this legislation, as it adds a waiting period of 90 days when the patient is informed of a Terminal Disease, and only if the Terminal Disease will end their life in six months or less is the patient allowed to end their life sooner.
Considering Right to Die is already Law,
This bill is an improvement as it includes a 90 waiting period and requires life-ending drugs to be self-administrated.
JQP
You are right about self-administering the drug, but the bill redefines “terminal disease” deleting the six month requirement, which changes the law to allowing taking a deadly drug for any terminal disease no matter how long they are projected to live. It does add a 90-day waiting period if the projected life is longer than six months. That is a significant expansion to the law.