Connecticut assisted suicide bill died based on the dangerous language in the bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

In an interview with the Fairfield Citizen, Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, the co-chair of Connecticut's General Assembly Judiciary Committee, explains why a “significant majority” of the committee were “uncomfortable” with advancing assisted suicide Bill HB 6425. Stafstrom states:

“There are certain folks who outright object to the idea of it on moral, religious or other grounds,” Stafstrom said by phone Wednesday. “The other thing, and what’s important for the judiciary committee, is, as drafted, the bill seemed to have unintended legal consequences.”

The state’s division of criminal justice said in testimony that the bill “effectively mandates the falsification of death certificates under certain circumstances,” by allowing the signer of a death certificate to list the qualified patient’s underlying terminal illness as the cause of death as opposed to the medication used to end his or her life.

That would pose a problem for the criminal justice system, the division said, when faced with cases involving a potential murder prosecution if the cause of death is not accurately reported on a death certificate.

Under the bill, a person would be guilty of murder if he or she willfully altered or forged a request for aid in dying or coerced someone to complete such a request.

But those actions don’t cause death, rather they potentially offer evidence of intent to kill, thus removing the “causation requirement” that is essential to any murder charge, the criminal justice division said, recommending that section be deleted.

“Given the legal uncertainty and the folks who just outright object to the concept all together, the votes were clearly not there to move the bill out of committee,” Stafstrom said.

Stephen Mendelsohn

There were many reasons to oppose HB 6425, but Stafstrom particularly pointed out the problems with the bill that were uncovered by disability rights leader, Stephen Mendelsohn from Second Thoughts Connecticut who in his article: Assisted suicide lobby spreads falsehoods to promote systemic ableism points out how the bill creates problems with its requirement to falsify death certificates.

The same problem with falsifying death certificates exists with every assisted suicide bill or law.

Most state representatives vote for or against assisted suicide based on the theory of assisted suicide, but at least in Connecticut some elected representative read the bill and killed the bill based on the dangerous language in the bill.

Sadly, the most dangerous assisted suicide legislation recently passed into law in New Mexico.