'Death with Dignity' bills would allow terminally ill patients to end their own lives
FOX 2 (WJBK) - A package of bills has been introduced to allow terminally ill patients to use prescribed medications to peacefully end their own lives.
"It’s very trying, and it’s a lot of suffering, and individuals ought to be able to decide when that’s just too much for them," said State Senator Veronica Klinefelt of Eastpointe.
On Thursday, Klinefelt –along with Senators Mary Cavanagh (D-Redford Twp.), Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores), and Sam Singh (D-East Lansing)– introduced Senate Bills 678-681, also known as the "Death with Dignity" legislation.
If passed, individuals with less than six months to live will have the choice to ask their doctor for medication to end their lives.
"They have to be diagnosed by two physicians, so there are safeguards in place," Klinefelt said. "There’s stuff in place for witnesses, and the patient has to be of sound mind and able to make these decisions for themselves."
Death with Dignity bills also include a 15-day waiting period, grants access to insurance coverage for treatment, and protects doctors from criminal prosecution for assisted suicide.
According to Professor Mark Navin from Oakland University, the core value of medicine revolves around a patient's autonomy and self-determination. However, he advises that certain boundaries and limitations should also be considered.
"We want to only let patients who have the ability to make these decisions be allowed to do it. We ought to worry about protecting vulnerable patients from being pushed into it, and we ought to worry about slippery slope concerns," Navin said. "Some countries like the Netherlands now allow physicians to provide aid in dying for children as young as 12 – who aren’t even dealing with terminal illness, but just of a mental illness diagnosis …and I think a lot of people are worried that that’s where you end up when you open the door to the sort of laws that Michigan is considering."
Many residents of Detroit are drawing parallels between the Death with Dignity bills and the controversial assisted suicide methods employed by the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian. But, experts and lawmakers are insisting they are not the same.
"This is not physicians actively engaged in administering life-ending interventions, but this is about patients who want to take life-ending medications on their own, and being able to get that through a prescribed way, through their physician," Kleinfelt said.
Kevorkian "made up his own rules," Klinefelt added. "By the state codifying this, we are putting into place things that we can watch it as a state. The state can monitor it and individuals have to be licensed – it can’t be abused the same way."