Maryland assisted suicide bill may permit euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In 2019, the Maryland assisted suicide bills passed in the House by a vote of 74 to 66 but failed in the Senate by a vote of 23 to 23.

In 2020, the Maryland assisted suicide House Bill HB 0643 and Senate Bill SB 701 may permit euthanasia. Most of the new assisted suicide bills have loose language to allow a wider interpretation.

The Maryland bill is designed as an application process for obtaining a lethal dose. Most assisted suicide bills state that the person self-administer the lethal dose, making it an assisted suicide.

The Maryland assisted suicide bill does not require the person to "self-administer" the lethal drugs but rather the bill says "may self-administer."

You may be told that "may self-administer" means that the person may change their mind. The term, may self-administer means that someone else can administer the lethal drug cocktail, allowing euthanasia or homicide.

When examining the bill further the potential for euthanasia becomes more clear. The assisted suicide bill § 3–103 states:

A licensed health care professional does not violate § 3–102 of this subtitle BY TAKING ANY ACTION in accordance with Title 5, Subtitle 6A of the health – general article.

The Maryland assisted suicide bill allows another person to administer the lethal drugs, which is euthanasia, and it provides full legal protection for the Health Care Professionals who do so.

Another addition to the recent assisted suicide bills is the acknowledgement that it may take at least 3 hours to die.

Current lethal drug cocktails may cause painful assisted suicide deaths that can take many hours to die.

For more than a year, the assisted suicide lobby has focused on eliminating "safeguards" in assisted suicide legislation.

Assisted suicide lobby researchers are working on their third generation of lethal drug cocktails. The results of the first two experimental lethal drug cocktails were:

The (first) turned out to be too harsh, burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain. The second drug mix, used 67 times, has led to deaths that stretched out hours in some patients — and up to 31 hours in one case.

The first two lethal drug cocktail experiments failed to provide a painless, fast death. 

People who participate in these lethal drug experiments have consented to ingesting the lethal drugs, but are they consenting to participate in human experimentation?