Medically assisted suicide failed by a single vote in the Maryland General Assembly last year.
Standing with poster boards of the late Maryland House speaker Michael E. Busch and the late U.S. congressman Elijah E. Cummings, two champions of the bill, advocates chanted “the time is now” during a news conference in Annapolis Tuesday morning.
Del. Shane E. Pendergrass (D-Howard), the lead House sponsor of the bill, said she is “very optimistic” that the legislation will pass, after failing for four straight years.
“Everyone is one bad death away from supporting this bill,” Pendergrass said. “Every year, more people are behind this bill because every year we lose people.”
Busch died in April while being treated for pneumonia; Cummings, a former state lawmaker, died in October after battling cancer. Both were political icons in Annapolis.
Pendergrass said there are 53 sponsors in the 141-member House this year and 17 sponsors in the 47-member Senate. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said this month that he is “willing to look at both sides of that issue.”
If approved, Maryland would join the District and nine states, including California, Colorado and New Jersey, that allow medically assisted suicide. The legislation has led to emotional debate about the role a dying person should have in determining when their life ends and also the risk that elderly and disabled people could be coerced into ending their lives.
It failed in dramatic fashion in Annapolis last year with a 23-23 vote, after Sen. Obie Patterson (D-Prince George’s) decided not to take a position on the bill. Patterson, who said at the time that he “could not bring myself to move right or left,” did not return a call seeking comment.
Last year’s vote in the Senate, after the bill was approved by the House, was the furthest the legislation has ever moved.
Sen. William C. Smith (D-Montgomery), the new chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee and last year’s lead bill sponsor in the Senate, said he strongly supports the measure but believes it is now two votes shy of passing the full Senate.
Newly appointed Sen. Charles E. Sydnor III (D-Baltimore) voted against the bill in the House of Delegates last year. He replaced former senator Shirley Nathan-Pulliam (D-Baltimore), who supported the measure. Pulliam resigned last month because of health concerns.
“We’re not interested in a moral victory in getting it out of committee and onto the Senate floor,” Smith said. “We’re interested in passing a good piece of legislation. So if it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, I’m not going to move it out of committee.”
Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), the lead Senate sponsor this year and vice chair of Judicial Proceedings, said he is committed to working with advocates to gain Senate approval. He said plans to meet with Patterson and other colleagues to “speak openly and honestly” about the merits of the bill, which is modeled after an Oregon law that applies to terminally ill patients whose doctors say they have six months or less to live.
Patients would have to make three requests to end their lives, both orally and in writing, with waiting periods and other precautions.
“We’ve got an uphill battle. But it is one that everyone is ready to fight,” Waldstreicher said.
Kim Callinan, president and chief executive of Compassion & Choices, the lead group advocating for the bill, said the changes in the Senate, including a new Senate president who supports the bill, represent a “whole new world” for the bill.
But Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said he also is not inclined to have the bill move to the floor “unless there is a clear indication that senators have changed their position.
The bill is strongly opposed by the Catholic Church and disability rights advocates, who say vulnerable populations could be unduly pressured to ask doctors to help end their lives to avoid more expensive options. In Virginia, which is considering a similar bill, disability rights activists are planning a news conference Wednesday.
Matt Valliere, executive director of the New York-based Patients Rights Action Fund, said the bill by Del. Kaye Kory (D-Fairfax) ignores the need for better palliative care for terminally ill patients. He called a provision in Kory’s bill that makes it a felony to coerce patients into seeking an assisted suicide “hollow.”
Callinan, who brought more than 100 volunteers to lobby lawmakers in Annapolis on Tuesday, said there is plenty of time for advocates to share their stories about why they think the bill should pass.
“What we know from other states is when lawmakers hear from their constituents about the importance of the bill, and they review the evidence and the data from across the 10 jurisdictions, they come to realize the importance of the legislation and they eventually support it,” she said.
Antonio Olivo contributed to this report from Richmond.
