Please forward this message to your e-mail lists ASAP!
Dear Friends of LifeTree,
The NC Senate Judiciary II committee is now actively considering S145, which is entitled, “An act ... creating the criminal offense of physician-assisted suicide.” It was discussed in committee on April 17th but not voted on. It is likely that the committee will again consider and vote on the bill as early as this Tuesday (April 22nd). Although the idea of this bill is good, it has major flaws and must be amended if it is to be truly effective.
The bill's first problem is that it is limited to covering the actions of licensed health care professionals. As a result, Kevorkian (“Dr. Death”), who assisted more than 90 suicides after his Michigan medical license had already been revoked, could not be prosecuted under this bill for doing in North Carolina what he did in Michigan. Neither could any layman be prosecuted for assisting a suicide.
Its second problem is that it defines certain conduct as not in violation of the law in terms which are far too permissive. One exception provides that no one shall be prosecuted for complying with an advance directive or living will. There is no limit on what might be placed in that document, yet the person who carries it out cannot be prosecuted. Even those who advocate legalizing assisted suicide do not permit it in response to advance directives. Keeping this section in the law would render it almost completely ineffective.
In addition, there is a poorly drafted exception from prosecution which protects those who may withhold or withdraw life-sustaining procedures without limiting their actions to compliance with already existing laws which control such conduct. Protection from prosecution should be clearly limited to conduct which otherwise complies with current North Carolina statutes.
(Additionally, the first edition of the bill would only have prohibited the use of drugs to assist suicide. It would not have prohibited the use of guns or other deadly devices. Fortunately, the second draft corrects this problem.)
You can read
this bill on the NC General Assembly’s web
site:
http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2003&BillID=s145
Compare it
to Michigan’s excellent law, which was enacted in 1998 to stop Dr.
Kevorkian:
http://www.michiganlegislature.org/law/mileg.asp?page=getObject&objName=mcl-750-329a
Please email
and call the 17 Senate Judiciary II committee members and the bill's
primary sponsor, Sen.
Forrester, and tell them that you support the idea that assisting
suicide should be a crime, but that S145 must be redrafted to remove
these glaring problems. You can view the Judiciary II committee
membership, with email addresses and phone numbers,
here:
http://burtonsys.com/senateJ2.html
Because it is likely that the bill will be called up for committee action early next week, it is important that you take time to do this by Monday, April 21st.
Elizabeth D. Wickham, Ph.D.
Executive Director, LifeTree
LifeTree@lifetree.org.nospam (remove the ".nospam")
http://www.lifetree.org/
919-785-0855
PO Box 17301
Raleigh, NC 27619