By now, you have probably heard the news that the Senate voted today to continue debate on S. 77. We had hoped for a vote to uphold the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation that it be rejected.
Several senators who had asked questions during the debate indicating real doubt about the bill voted to give the Health and Welfare Committee time to amend it. On Thursday, when the bill will be read for the second time, the Health and Welfare Committee will probably come back with some minor amendments that amount to window dressing. We do not believe that they will address the real concerns, such as the lack of witnesses at the time of death the the failure to require notification of the family, and the falsification of the death certificate by listing the underlying disease as the cause of death and the manner of death as natural.
The question now is whether the senators who seemed so concerned will use a few meaningless changes in language to justify voting for the bill or whether they will vote against the bill because of their reasonable doubts about is safety.
It is very important to keep the phone calls and emails coming in to these senators, particularly Bob Hartwell and Peter Galbraith, who expressed real concerns about the bill
John Rodgers, Elred French and Don Collins have said they will vote for the bill. John Rodgers based his decision on a flawed poll with misleading questions. If you live in Senator Rodgers’ district and got called by that poll and did not realize it was about assisted suicide, please contact Rodgers now and tell him so. Tell him you do indeed support good palliative care which may unintentionally hasten death, but you do not support assisted suicide.
It’s not over yet. You can still make a difference.