After at least five legislative sessions without advancing beyond the committee stage, bills that would open the door to doctors prescribing lethal doses for terminally ill patients got favorable reports from the Committee on Public Health…
The bills (H 1926/S 1208) that would legalize medical aid in dying – sometimes referred to as doctor-assisted suicide or death with dignity – filed by Rep. Louis Kafka, D-Stoughton, and Sen. Will Brownsberger, D-Belmont – were redrafted and reported out favorably by the Committee on Public Health…
Opponents of the bill echoed their previous comments that if the bill is approved, certain demographic groups will be targeted.
“It is unthinkable at the outset of our tenuous Covid reopening that the MA public health committee would devote time to regressive, discriminatory assisted suicide legislation, which is fatally flawed and ripe for abuse, coercion, and mistakes,” Matt Valliere, executive director of Patients Rights Action Fund, said. “When care is expensive and suicide is cheap, what message are we sending to our elders, the immune compromised, and people with life-threatening disabilities, who are at the greatest risk of a second wave?”
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