This legislative session New York lawmakers have 2 bills in front of them that would allow a physician to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill patient.
A mentally competent patient with less than 6 months to live could chose to end their life with their doctor’s help. Two physicians would have to agree the patient’s illness is terminal.
Timothy Quill is a palliative care physician at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Most of his work is helping severely ill patients cope with their pain, but he says in severe cases medicine is limited at the end of a person’s life.
“This addresses the tougher question a little bit down the road for those relatively infrequent, but very troubling, patients who are dying and who are suffering in ways that we can’t relieve very well,” says Quill.
According to the doctor, in states where terminally ill people are allowed to choose to end their lives the option is rare and controlled. California recently became the fifth state to legalize physician assisted suicide.
For some who oppose physician assisted suicide, it’s a disability rights issue.
“There’s a very deadly mix between our current cost cutting health care system, an aging society, and legalizing assisted suicide, which would if it were public policy, if it were considered a regular treatment, would be the cheapest treatment,” says Diane Coleman, president of the organization Not Dead Yet.
She says that some people who are given 6 months to live will survive much longer.
The law includes a provision that makes coercion a felony, but Cole says it doesn’t eliminate all potential for abuse and coercion by heirs.