Minn. Senate Committee Taking Up 'Right To Die' Bill

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Terminally ill patients with only six months left to live could be prescribed life-ending medication under a bill moving through the Minnesota Legislature.

The Minnesota Compassionate Care Act would make the state the sixth in the nation to enact so-called "Right to Die" legislation. Hundreds of people packed into a Senate hearing room on Wednesday afternoon, with many opponents donning red shirts and stickers and bill proponents dressed in bright yellow.

Under Sen. Chris Eaton's proposal, two doctors would sign off on a patient's life expectancy and mental competency before a patient could self-administer life-ending drugs.

Eaton said Wednesday that she doesn't expect her bill, which is modeled after Oregon's 1997 Death with Dignity Act, to be considered by the Republican-controlled House, but said it's important to further the conversation in the state.

"Aid in dying gives those who are close to death with no chance of recovery an alternative when their agony becomes unbearable," she said. "These people are dying. If nothing is done, they will die."

Five other states have passed legislation allowing for terminally ill patients to end their lives. California, the latest state do so, will begin allowing patients to apply for medication in June.

Under Eaton's proposal, medical providers or insurers would not be required to participate and health care institutions could also prohibit employees from participating.

Patients would need to submit a written request and have two witnesses present. Two physicians would be required to confirm the life expectancy and mental competency of patients and provide them a full list of alternatives.

Patients would ultimately have to take a prescribed dose of medication — commonly secobarbital — themselves. It would be their choice whether to actually take the drugs.

Over a hundred opponents of the bill, sporting stickers that read "No Assisted Suicide," filed into a Senate hearing room on Wednesday afternoon.

Luba Hickey, a retired nurse from St. Paul who came to the hearing, said a medical diagnosis can be wrong and that the state should not be condoning physicians to help people die.

"Doctors are wrong, medicine is not perfect and compassion comes in taking care of your fellow human beings — not in killing them," she said.

Eaton, the bill's chief author, was joined Wednesday morning at a press conference by other lawmakers and Dan Diaz, who made national headlines in 2014 when he and his late wife Brittany Maynard decided to move to Oregon so she could legally end her life.

Holding back tears, Diaz spoke about his 29-year-old wife's ultimate decision to die with the help of doctors following a lengthy battle with brain cancer. He said hundreds of Minnesotans should have the option of applying for medical aid in dying.

"And then they are the ones that are in control, they are the ones that are taking control back from their illness so that their final few days can play out peacefully," he said.

Minnesota Senate