Assisted suicide goes down in another two states

This article was published by OneNewsNow on April 25, 2019

The fight is well under way over allowing doctor-assisted suicide but two states have pushed back on the push to kill fellow human beings.

Nevada is the latest to turn down assisted suicide over a lack of support for passage, and a push in liberal Connecticut was defeated despite fewer euthanasia opponents in the state legislature due to last year’s elections.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says euthanasia opponents assured Nevada lawmakers they were being fed faulty claims, such as a prognosis of six months to live. Those predictions are often wrong, he says.

“In fact, a study of people in hospice care found that of 486 predictions of a prognosis of how long they were going to have to live, only 20 percent of them are correct,” he tells OneNewsNow.

Another factor in the Nevada political fight was the story of Reno doctor, Robert Rand. He was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison for overprescribing opioids. Several patients died, including a cancer patient who overdosed.

“if Robert Rand had done this,” Schadenberg explains, “and had done this to many patients, and was able to get away with this for so long, how are you going to control assisted suicide?”

In the state of Connecticut, there was concern the measure might pass because several legislators who vocally opposed assisted suicide were defeated last year.

“So we were very concerned,” Schadenberg recalls. “Nonetheless they defeated the bill again.”

But the issue is not going away and new bills will likely be introduced again, he says.

• Good news: Nevada assisted suicide bill died a natural death.
• Good news: Connecticut defeats assisted suicide bill again.