Montana Senate passes bill that will stop assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Darrell Ehrlick that was published in the Bozeman Daily Chronical on February 7 covered the debate on Montana Bill SB 136 that passed by a vote of 29 to 20 (one abstained) on February 7 in the Montana Senate.

Article: Montana bill to prohibit assisted suicide passes in the Senate (Link)

Contact members of the Montana House and urge them to vote YES on SB 136. (List of legislative members).

Ehrlick reported what Senator Carl Glimm, the sponsor of SB 136 stated:

Senator Carl Glimm

“It will just keep growing and growing,” Glimm said, citing cases where a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder “was talked into suicide.”

Glimm said he worried that others with physical or intellectual disabilities would be targeted, a concerned shared by other members of his caucus.

Ehrlick reported the following comments by Senator Daniel Emrich:

“That this is a peaceful way to go out is a fallacy. The drug cocktails they give them contain paralytics and these, without other drugs, will make them suffocate and die,” said Sen. Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls. “The reason they give them paralytics is to cover up these people would be flailing in place.”

He said the message the Legislature is sending is even more dangerous:

“We’re telling them they’re not worthy to be on this earth. That they should just go away because they’re inconvenient. That they have some disability or ailment or we just don’t want them any more because they’re wasting away.”

The comments by Senator Bob Phalen were also interesting. Ehrlick reported:

Sen. Bob Phalen, R-Lindsay, questioned how the Montana Legislature could halt lethal injections for death row inmates out of a fear that the drugs would cause suffering or prolong death, but support physician assisted death.

“It is inhumane then, but now it’s OK?” Phalen asked.

SB 136 prevents assisted suicide by clarifying that consent is not a defense for homicide or assisted suicide. SB 136 states:

(3) (a) For the purposes of subsection (2)(d), physician aid in dying is against public policy, and a patient's consent to physician aid in dying is not a defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician.  

(b) (i) For the purposes of this subsection (3), "physician aid in dying" means an act by a physician of prescribing a lethal dose of medication to a patient that the patient may self-administer to end the patient's life.  

(ii) The term does not include an act of withholding or withdrawing a life-sustaining treatment or procedure authorized pursuant to Title 50, chapter 9 or 10."

Contact Montana State Senators and urge them to vote YES on SB 136 at the third and final reading. (List of legislative members).