Montana moves toward legalizing physician-assisted suicide

The Montana Supreme Court has decided that nothing in the state’s laws would prevent a resident from seeking physician-assisted suicide.

In 2008, a lower court judge ruled that Montana’s constitutional right to privacy law guarantees the right for terminally ill patients to ask their doctors for death drugs.

A “Montana Death with Dignity Act” has been proposed.

Although the Montana Supreme Court declared that there is no such guarantee in the Constitution (case of Baxter v Montana, Dec. 2009); the Court also stated that public debate should continue, and the final move toward physician assisted suicide would be made through the democratic voting process.

Montana would be the third state in the union to legalize physician-assisted suicide, behind Oregon and Washington.

Oregon’s “Death with Dignity Act” was affirmed by voters in 1994, and in 1997 it became legal for doctors to assist terminally ill patients toward death by giving lethal doses of prescription drugs.

Washington legalized essentially the same law in 2008.

Oregon’s original law was fashioned after that of the Netherlands; however, the Netherlands has seen a blurring of the difference between physician-assisted suicide and physician-decided euthanasia.

Here is a brief timeline:

1981: Holland’s Rotterdam Court puts out specific guidelines for legal physician assisted suicide. The patient (1) must be experiencing unbearable pain, and (2) the patient must be conscious and able to give voluntary consent. The “pain” part is universally accepted as meaning physical pain.

1986: It is ruled that “psychic suffering” or “potential disfigurement of personality” could also be a legal reason.

1992: The Dutch Pediatric Association issues formal guidelines for killing severely handicapped newborns. It is decided that doctors would judge if a baby’s “quality of life” was such that the baby should be killed.

1993: The Dutch Justice Ministry proposes extending court-approved euthanasia guidelines to formally include “active medical intervention to cut short life without an express request” from the patient; and that same year affirms euthanasia for psychiatric reasons.

According to Concerned Women for America, a 1996 USA Today poll found that seventy-five percent of Americans felt assisted suicide is acceptable.

However, in a March 2000 Zogby poll,  when posed directly with the question, “If you yourself were terminally ill…” only one-third of over 1,000 people said they would choose euthanasia for themselves.

The most famous recent U.S. case of physician-assisted suicide is the 2005 death of Terri Schiavo in Florida.

Mrs. Schiavo was unable to decide for herself whether she wanted to live or die.Her parents and several physicians maintained she was hearing and responding.

Courts ruled with her husband and other doctors who said she was in a “persistent vegetative state” (PVS).

The debate rages to this day as to whether she was actually in PVS or could have been rehabilitated while in the earlier years of her illness.

Schiavo was not removed from life support; her body was not on life support. She was breathing on her own.

She was only on feeding apparatus. Once that apparatus was removed, it took Schiavo fourteen days of starvation to die.

According to OneNewsNow, Montana’s pro-life organizations are lobbying against a Montana Death with Dignity Act.

The President of the Montana Pro-Life Coalition, Dr. Annie Bukacek, told OneNewsNow that physician-assisted suicide violates Montana homicide laws, violates ethical policies of the Montana Medical Association and the AMA, and also violates the Hippocratic Oath.