Washington State Assisted Suicide expansion bill (HB 1141) passes first stage.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Washington State legislature

The assisted suicide lobby have focused on increasing assisted suicide in America by expanding the current assisted suicide laws and by legalizing assisted suicide in more states. In my 2022 predictions I stated that assisted suicide expansion bills in Hawaii, Vermont, Oregon and Washington state will be strongly pushed in 2022.

The assisted suicide lobby always claimed that there is no "slippery slope" but, in reality, after legalizing assisted suicide they simply waited for the "right time" to expand the law.

Washington State legalized assisted suicide in 2009. Last year assisted suicide expansion Bill HB 1141 was introduced but the bill ran out of time in committee. Sadly, HB 1141 was re-introduced and passed in the House on January 12. The bill will now go to the Senate.

Here is a short video that I recorded on Bill HB 1141 last year.

HB 1141 expands the current assisted suicide law by:

• Expanding the list of who can prescribe lethal drug cocktails by changing it from physicians to "qualified medical provider." A "qualified medical provider" is defined as a physician, or a licensed physician assistant, or a osteopathic physician, or an advanced registered nurse practitioner.
• Expanding the list of who is legally able to counsel a person, when the qualified medical provider questions the ability of the person to consent. Those who would be permitted to offer counseling include: a state licensed psychiatrist or, psychologist, independent clinical social worker, advanced social worker, mental health counselor, or psychiatric advanced registered nurse practitioner.
• Eliminating the 15 day waiting period and replacing it with a 72 hour waiting period and then allowing the waiting period to be rescinded if the qualified medical provider believes that the person may be imminently dying. This permits a "same day death."
  

The current version of HB 1141 does not permit the lethal drug cocktail to be delivered by mail or courier.

The primary concern with all assisted suicide laws is that they give physicians (or qualified medical providers) the right in law to approve and prescribe death by lethal drugs. Assisted suicide causes death, which is irrevocable.

HB 1141 expands the assisted suicide law by eliminating the waiting period, making it possible for a same day death. A person can request and potentially receive lethal drugs on the same day. Your bad day becomes your last day.

The bill also expands who can prescribe the lethal drug cocktail from physicians to "qualified medical provider," which includes physician assistants and registered nurse practitioners. Expanding the list of who can approve and prescribe not only increases the availability of assisted suicide but it also enables lesser trained medical providers to specialize as "assisted suicide providers."

As I have always stated, once we legalize prescribing suicide by lethal drugs, the prohibition on killing has now been crossed. The only remaining question is the rules that are established to kill.