New Hampshire assisted suicide bill is likely dead in 2025.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

New Hampshire legislature

The New Hampshire assisted suicide bill (House Bill 254) is likely dead in 2025 following a close vote to table the bill in the House of Representatives.

William Skipworth reported for The New Hampshire Bulletin on March 20, 2025 that:

By a single vote, the New Hampshire House of Representatives decided to table a proposal to legalize assisted suicide.

By tabling this bill, the House decided not to advance it to the Senate, but didn’t kill it entirely. Lawmakers can still bring it back up for a vote should they choose. The bipartisan vote to table it was 183-182.

Skipworth reported that a similar bill was debated last year:

The debate over assisted suicide is not a new one in the New Hampshire State House. The practice was almost legalized last year when 2024’s House Bill 1283, a very similar piece of legislation, was approved by the House, but failed in the Senate.

In tabling the bill House majority leader Jason Osborne said:

“I do enjoy a debate of nine speakers such as we have lined up here as much as the next guy,”

“But I also know that we don’t need to have the same debate every year.”

On March 21, 2024, the New Hampshire House passed assisted suicide House Bill 1283 by a vote of 179 to 176. The bill was referred to the Senate where it was stopped on May 16, 2024 by a vote to 17 to 7 when they sent the bill for further study. 

New Hampshire assisted suicide bill is dead in 2024 (Link).

New York assisted suicide lobby members arrested for civil disobedience.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Assisted suicide lobby members in New York were arrested for disorderly conduct on Tuesday May 21 as they conducted a civil disobedience protest in the New York Assembly. Clearly the assisted suicide lobby is becoming desperate as New York State Assembly members continue to prevent debate on assisted suicide Bill A995 and S2445.

The assisted suicide lobby stated in their recent article that:

Corinne Carey, Compassion & Choices’ Senior Campaign Director for NY/NJ, and terminally ill Bronx resident Jules Netherland, issued the following statements in conjunction with their arrest Tuesday for civil disobedience and the arrest of nine other advocates in support of New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act.

Corinne Carey stated:

"As campaign director for the last decade and a lawyer who prides herself on not getting arrested – other than that one time in the U.S. Senate gallery protesting so-called welfare reforms in 1996 – this is the last thing I wanted to do. But the lack of movement on the bill so far has sadly left us no other choice."

We know that the New York assisted suicide lobby was in trouble last December, when Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, who is the sponsor of Assembly Bill A0995 stated on a video (starting at 18:40) that 'they need to get the assisted suicide bill passed first and then amend it later.'

I will not comment on the historical success of civil disobedience, but I will suggest that the civil disobedience is related to the desperation of the assisted suicide lobby in New York and several other states.

The assisted suicide lobby has failed to legalize assisted suicide in new states in the past two years and this year they have currently failed to legalize assisted suicide in any new state.

The most recent success in stoping assisted suicide was in New Hampshire where assisted suicide Bill HB 1283 passed in the House by a vote of 179 to 176 but failed in the Senate when a 17 - 7 vote referred the bill to further study.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has focused on defeating the New York assisted suicide bill assisted suicide Bill.

In February we contacted New York State representatives and sent them this letter that clearly explains why they need to reject assisted suicide (Link). We also contacted our New York supporters urging them to contact their elected State representatives with the following message (Link).

Recently we contacted New York State representatives again with a similar message that proved to be very successful in New Hampshire, titled: A Libertarian call to defeat New York Bill A995 and S2445 (Link).

We must remain vigilant. The fact that the assisted suicide lobby is becoming desperate, may lead to the assisted suicide lobby becoming even more active.

We hope that the desperation of the assisted suicide lobby back-fires on them.

New Hampshire Senate Kills Assisted Suicide Bill

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

New Hampshire's 2024 assisted suicide bill is dead (Link)

The New Hampshire Senate killed Assisted Suicide Bill HB 1283 by a vote of 17 to 7 by referring it to an interim study on the bill.

Sruthi Gopalakrishnan reported on May 16, 2024 for the Concord Monitor that:

New Hampshire’s bill also did not have a residency restriction, which was a point of worry for senators who voted against the bill during the Senate session.

“We’ve discussed in this chamber passing legislation to prevent us from becoming magnets for crime, drugs, human trafficking and more,” said Sen. Regina Birdsell, asking the Senate to refer it to an interim study. “This bill because it has no residency requirements would make our state a magnet for a much more tragic purpose.”

The question of whether this law is assisted suicide or a humane way to die has dominated the debate in New Hampshire for the past few months and this was evident in Thursday’s senate session.

Gopalakrishnan reported that Canada's experience affected the New Hampshire debate:

Other concerns about the bill stem from Canada’s decision to extend medical aid in dying to even individuals without a terminal illness. While New Hampshire’s legislation imposes safeguards, includes provisions for self-administration of medication to prevent potential abuse among the disabled population, critics fear future expansions. They worry that similar to developments in Canada, eligibility criteria could be broadened beyond the original scope.

The assisted suicide lobby will try again next year. Gopalakrishnan reports

Although medical aid in dying won’t reach the governor’s desk this year, advocates emphasize that the push to legalize it in New Hampshire will persist, asserting that the decision to conclude one’s life with dignity should remain within the individual’s control.

The President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Gordon Friesen, sent members of New Hampshire's Senate his article titled: A call to defeat New Hampshire assisted suicide House Bill 1283 (Link).

New Hampshire assisted suicide bill is dead in 2024.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

On March 21, 2024, the New Hampshire House passed assisted suicide House Bill 1283 by a vote of 179 to 176 based on support from Libertarian Republicans. The assisted suicide bill was referred to the Senate where it was stopped on May 16, 2024 by a vote to 17 to 7 to send the bill for further study.  

Adam Sexton reported for wmur.com that:

After an emotional floor debate on Thursday morning, New Hampshire state senators voted 17-7 to further study a bill that would legalize "medical aid in dying," or assisted suicide, in New Hampshire.

The legislation, which already passed the New Hampshire House by a narrow margin, would allow a terminally ill adult patient of sound mind with fewer than six months to live to be prescribed a lethal cocktail of drugs, which they would self-administer to die by suicide. But now, the bill will be sidelined, likely until the next legislative session.

The President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Gordon Friesen, sent members of New Hampshire's Senate his article titled: A call to defeat New Hampshire assisted suicide House Bill 1283 (Link).

A call to defeat New Hampshire assisted suicide House Bill 1283 "An Act relative to end of life options"

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen
President: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition 

It is a widely shared principle that, as long as our actions cause no harm to others, we might all be allowed to do as we please.

And so it is that many principled people --and even many who are personally repulsed by the idea of assisted death-- feel a visceral duty to support the "right" of others to choose the manner of their own passing. Unfortunately, however, HB 1283 would not merely create a liberty of permission for this purpose. Indeed far from it.

At the heart of HB-1283[i] lies, first, the concept of "medical assistance in dying" (even though majority patient trust has traditionally been founded on the Hippocratic Physician's promise not to kill); and second, the associated legislative assertion that MAID is not suicide (even though it plainly involves people deliberately taking poison to end their lives). Together, these extraordinary definitions herald a radical conceptual transformation of assisted death --from forbidden medical homicide to legitimate medical treatment-- and therein lies the special significance of Bills like HB 1283.

For medical care is universally seen as a positive benefit and a human right. To legally define assisted death in this way is thus to necessarily create entitlements, obligations and mandates whose implementation is entirely foreign to any fundamental notion of free choice.[ii]

Moreover, if we look to our Northern neighbour, we can already see exactly how such a medically justified regime of assisted death is destined to unfold. For since the first appearance of the term "MAID" in Canadian legislation (Province of Quebec, 2014)[iii] legal statutes and regulations have been enacted which require the performance of euthanasia in all institutions; by all medical professionals (with limited conscience-based exceptions only); and the proactive mandatory discussion of MAID with all eligible patients. Indeed, Canadian hospitals, and care teams have normalized euthanasia, to such an extent, that the vast non-suicidal majority of eligible patients are now obliged to navigate a clinical environment which has become objectively indifferent (if not hostile) to their continued survival.[iv]

Very obviously, no coherent system of individual liberty might ever have produced such a result. Quite the contrary: the simplest and most direct explanation of Canadian euthanasia lies, not in personal choice at all, but in the utilitarian budgetary advantage --to the State-- of systematically purging expensive and dependent persons from the public role.

Most certainly, also, a principled defence of death-by-choice does not require liberty-minded citizens to espouse this extreme theory of death-as-care. Both Switzerland[v] and Germany[vi], for example, recognize a general right to suicide (including assisted suicide) but explicitly refuse to accord such actions any objective validation (medical or otherwise), precisely in order to avoid the disastrous effects of entitlements, mandates and obligations as described above.[vii]

In conclusion, therefore: Although I am personally opposed to any assisted death whatsoever, I also recognize that a sincere philosophy of "live-and-let-live" may indeed inspire principled support for death-by-choice. But not with just any Bill. And certainly not with this one.

In the end, we must decide whether New Hampshire’s medical industry will be structured to prioritize typical patient satisfaction, or that of a small suicidal minority. And above all: whether the radical new paradigm of utilitarian death-medicine now seen in Canada --and so clearly echoed in HB-1283-- will be allowed to high-jack the freedom agenda entirely.

With the greatest respect, I request the defeat of this legislation.

Gordon Friesen, President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Endnotes:

[i] "An act relative to end of life options" New Hampshire HB1283, 2024 (Link to Bill).

[ii] Constitution of the World Health Organization (1946) as amended (2005) accessed April 17, 2024 (Article Link) accessed April 17, 2024

[iii] "Act Respecting End-of-Life Care" Province of Quebec, Canada, 2014, as revised 2024 (Link to Legislation) accessed April 17, 2024

[iv] Lessons from the Canadian Euthanasia Experiment, G. R. Friesen, April 4, 2023 (Link to article) accessed April 17, 2024

[v] Swiss criminal code art. 115 (Link to Swiss Criminal Code) accessed Nov 4, 2023

[vi] German High Court decision February 26, 2020 (Article Link) accessed Oct 28, 2023

[vii] Fundamental Considerations in the Creation of a Minimally Intrusive Liberty of Assisted Death (produced for the Irish Joint Committee on Assisted Dying), G.R. Friesen, November 12, 2023, (Article Link) accessed April 17, 2024.

Young people need suicide prevention not promotion.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Mary Fahey

Mary Fahey has written a powerful op-ed that was published in the Manchester Union Leader on April 10, 2024 in response to New Hampshire assisted suicide legalization bill HB 1283.

Fahey opposes assisted suicide based on her personal experience. She writes:

At 23 years old, I have more chronic, incurable, and life-altering diseases than I can count on one hand. I am also a survivor of a suicide attempt and have dealt with strong suicidal ideation as I’ve faced daily suffering and the loss of my health as I knew it. While I have gotten the help I need to learn to live happily with my near constant illness, it has been one of the hardest tasks of my life, a task further burdened by the countless doctors I saw who knew little to nothing of my conditions or how to treat them.

Fahey states that she has found happiness, in her struggles from her friends and family in her life. Fahey continues:

This legislation fails to reinforce the value of New Hampshire citizens. Rather, assisted suicide, by its nature, creates a cruel scale of value on human lives, deeming some more worthy than others simply based on their circumstances. With assisted suicide, we are no longer stating that we should protect all lives from suicide, instead, we are saying that some lives should be exempt from that protection, that some lives are simply not worth living.

Fahey, who has survived a suicide attempt continues:

As a society, we work diligently to prevent suicide in healthy individuals, because of the knowledge that their lives have inherent and immeasurable value, and we know their death would be a tragedy. Is it our place to remove that value and promote suicide simply because someone is challenged by suffering? Doing so has devastating and far-reaching consequences, especially for New Hampshire’s young people, for whom suicide rates are already on the rise.

The supporters of this bill assert that medical aid in dying (MAID) is not actually suicide, because those who utilize it do not wish to die, and those who end their lives by suicide do wish to die, and therefore it puts no one at risk. I find this claim incredibly false. When I attempted suicide, I did not wish to die, rather, I desperately wished to live. I simply saw no alternative to the mental and physical suffering I was experiencing.

Fahey has also lost several friends to suicide. She writes:

Recently, I lost a childhood friend to suicide. He was young, with a young family. Another young woman I know of took her life last month; her obituary reads “she made a heart-breaking decision in an effort to pursue peace.” Passing HB 1283 will clearly send the message to vulnerable young people that intentionally and unnaturally ending one’s life in the face of suffering is a legitimate solution to their pain.

Fahey lives with suffering but normalizing suicide and death are not the answer. Fahey writes:

One of the greatest burdens in my personal health journey has not been the illness itself, but reconciling the unavoidable pain, discomfort, and fear with the goodness of life. I believe many young people in a similar position would say the same. I still struggle to accept this, but while I can hardly remember a day without bodily suffering, I also cannot remember a day where I have not been able to find great meaning and joy.

When the proponents of this bill state that it is not only permissible, but dignified, to take one’s life when confronting great adversity, it undermines the efforts of all of those, like myself, who have fought so hard to live in the face of grave, and often silent, suffering. It puts countless New Hampshire young people at risk by normalizing suicide as an acceptable solution to their burdens.

Fahey ends her article by urging people to contact their state Senator to oppose assisted suicide.

Contrary to the message of this bill, our suffering doesn’t define us. Our lives, however difficult, however limited, are worth living and celebrating. The Granite State needs to protect lives, not legislate ways to end them. I urge those who value every life to reach out to their state senator and ask them to vote against HB 1283.

People with disabilities need help to live not to die (Link).

People with disabilities need help to live not to die.

This opinion was published by the New Hampshire Union Leader on February 26, 2024

Jules Good

By Jules Good

As New Hampshire considers legalizing assisted suicide, also referred to as medical aid in dying (MAID), I would like to draw attention to the potential impacts this bill could have on disabled and other marginalized residents.

I was 19 years old the second time I attempted to die by suicide. I had just been diagnosed with a chronic but not life-threatening illness, I had rapidly lost about 70% of my hearing in the middle of completing a music degree, and I was struggling with untreated anorexia that was taking a serious toll on my health.

At my intake appointment with a new therapist a few days after my attempt, I explained my situation and the hopelessness I was feeling. She nodded along, then looked me in the eyes and said something I will never forget:

“I would probably kill myself if I were you.”

She wasn’t the first person to say this to me as I started becoming more noticeably disabled, but she was probably the last person I expected to do so. Now that I work in disability policy, nothing surprises me. I hear stories from other disabled people about doctors pressuring them to sign DNRs because they are assumed to have a low quality of life due to their disability. I get messages on social media from people asking me how to advocate for appropriate pain management when their doctors don’t believe the amount of pain they’re in. I pore over story after story of people like Michael Hickson and Tinslee Lewis having treatment withdrawn, withheld, or threatened because of the pervasive view that it’s better to be dead than disabled.

This is why I am critical of policies that are biased toward ending the lives of people with significant disabilities rather than toward preserving them — policies like legally-assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide and the discussion around terminal illness in general has historically been framed as an issue for older adults. Young people aren’t “supposed to” have to think about death, yet adulthood for twenty-somethings like me continues to be shaped by a deadly pandemic, mass shootings, and systemic violence. We’ve heard story after story of perfectly healthy young people who got infected with COVID and are now permanently and significantly disabled.

One of my neighbors, a man in his early 30s, was a victim in a shooting that claimed the life of his 8-year-old son. He sustained permanent physical disabilities from the gunshot wound. Now more than ever, young people need to be invested in equitable treatment for disabled people, not only because we are human beings who deserve care, but also because the odds of younger people becoming disabled or caring for a disabled person are continually rising.

While proponents claim that assisted suicide is only for “terminally ill people who are about to die anyway,” they ignore the fact that many disabilities can become terminal if left untreated. In our for-profit healthcare system, denying or merely delaying care can make an otherwise manageable disability terminal. Medical racism and transphobia increase barriers to care, resulting in BIPOC and trans people reporting postponing or avoiding medical care due to discrimination.

Up to a quarter of people with chronic illnesses have chosen not to fulfill a prescription to manage their condition because of cost. The more vulnerable a person is, the more likely they are to be “steered” toward assisted suicide. It doesn’t take direct coercion to make this happen; a system where death seems like the best or only option for the most marginalized patients is not a system that needs a legal avenue for doctors to help us die.

As my colleague and prominent disability justice activist Anita Cameron has written, disabled people need “supports to live, not tools to die.” A policy of assisted suicide is not an avenue for bodily autonomy or choice; it is yet another tool that can be used to deny care to those who need it most.

Newmarket’s Jules Good is a disability policy professional and activist.

Assisted suicide lobby launches lawsuit to allow assisted suicide tourism in New Jersey.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The assisted suicide lobby launched a lawsuit on Tuesday, August 29 to force the state of New Jersey to drop its assisted suicide residency requirement. The lawsuit claims that the New Jersey assisted suicide law is unconstitutional because it denies equal treatment.

If the residency requirement in the New Jersey assisted suicide law is withdrawn, the assisted suicide lobby will establish an assisted suicide clinic in New Jersey to assist the suicides of people in the neighboring states that have not legalized assisted suicide.

New Jersey is not far from: New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and New Hampshire --- states that have not legalized assisted suicide.

The Compassion and Choices media release stated:

Compassion & Choices filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday afternoon on behalf of cancer patients in Delaware and Pennsylvania and two New Jersey doctors asserting the residency mandate in New Jersey’s medical aid-in-dying law violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment. The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey, to prohibit state officials and the Camden County prosecutor from enforcing this unconstitutional provision of the law. The lawsuit complaint is posted at: bit.ly/NJMedicalAidinDyingLawResidencySuit

...The plaintiffs assert that the law’s residency requirement violates three clauses in the U.S. Constitution, specifically the:

• 1. Privileges and Immunities Clause by limiting the availability of medical aid in dying to residents of New Jersey. 

• 2. Dormant Commerce Clause by restricting interstate commerce, including medical care. 

• 3. Equal Protection Clause by failing to provide residents and nonresidents equal protection under federal law.

On October 2021, the assisted suicide lobby group, Compassion and Choices, and Dr Nicholas Gideonse, an assisted suicide doctor, launched a court case challenging the Oregon assisted suicide residency requirement. Instead of defending the residency requirement, the Oregon Government, on March 29, 2022 agreed to remove the residency requirement.

A February 2023 article by James Reinl for the Daily Mail reported that Dr Nicholas Gideonse has opened the first assisted suicide clinic in Oregon to prescribe lethal assisted suicide drugs for death tourists. At least one person from Texas and an east coast resident has died by assisted suicide in Oregon.

On August 26, 2022, Compassion and Choices launched a lawsuit on behalf of a Connecticut woman and a Vermont doctor challenging Vermont's assisted suicide residency requirement.

Lisa Rathke reported on March 14, 2023 for the Associated Press that Vermont's attorney general's office reached an agreement with the assisted suicide lobby and dropped the Vermont assisted suicide residency requirement.

The assisted suicide lobby failed to legalize assisted suicide in any more states since 2021. By dropping the state assisted suicide residency requirements the assisted suicide lobby is creating suicide tourist states. 

New Jersey neighbors several highly populated states that have not legalized assisted suicide. If New Jersey drops its residency requirement, the assisted suicide lobby will establish an assisted suicide clinic in New Jersey to service the killing across the Northeast United States.

Assisted suicide bills are not what they appear to be.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The assisted suicide lobby has introduced assisted suicide bills in at least 18 States in 2020. All of these bills include "safeguards" that appear to provide oversight of the law.

Recently I published an article explaining how the "safeguards" are written with loosely defined language to permit the laws to be redefined over time. I also explained that the "safeguards" are designed to convince legislators to legalize assisted suicide, while the assisted suicide lobby intends to remove them overtime. 

For instance, the Hawaii legislature passed an assisted suicide bill in 2018 that came into effect on Jan 1, 2019. There were 27 assisted suicide deaths in 2019.

The assisted suicide lobby is proposing to expand the assisted suicide law after only one year. The Hawaii legislature is debating bills SB 2582 and HB 2451 to expand the assisted suicide law by:

• permitting nurses to prescribe the lethal drugs,
• shortening the waiting period in general, and 
• waiving the waiting period when someone is "nearing death."

The Hawaii legislature also debated bill SB 3047 that would have allowed:

• assisted suicide for incompetent people who requested death in an advanced directive,
• physicians to waive the counseling requirement, 
• assisted suicide to be approved by "telehealth" and 
• require insurance companies to pay for assisted suicide.

Its hard to believe that the assisted suicide lobby wants death by "Telehealth."

The Washington State legislature is debating Bill 2419, a bill to study the "safeguards" in their assisted suicide law. One of the issues to be studied is allowing euthanasia (lethal injection) rather than limiting it to assisted suicide.

Last year the Oregon legislature expanded their assisted suicide law by waiving the 15 day waiting period.

Assisted suicide may not be a peaceful death.

The assisted suicide lobby has been using experimental lethal drug cocktails as they attempt to find a cheaper way to kill. The current assisted suicide drug cocktails have caused painful deaths that may take many hours to die. A recent article stated:

The (first drug mix) 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 assisted suicide lobby is working on their third experimental lethal cocktail. Assisted suicide is not guaranteed to cause a "peaceful or painless death."

Our greatest concern is the New York assisted suicide bill. Governor Cuomo stated that he will sign an assisted suicide bill into law.

New York Assembly Bill A2694 and Senate Bill S3947 where introduced as the Medical Aid in Dying Act.

As Margaret Dore, the President of Choice is an Illusion stated in her article: New York: Reject Medical Aid in Dying Act:

“Aid in Dying” is a euphemism for euthanasia.[3] The Act, however, purports to prohibit euthanasia. On close examination, this prohibition will be unenforceable.

If enacted, the Act will apply to people with years or decades to live. It will also facilitate financial exploitation, especially in the inheritance context. Don’t render yourself or someone you care about a sitting duck to heirs and other predators. I urge you to reject the proposed Act.

Assisted suicide is an act whereby one person (usually a physician) provides a prescription for a lethal drug cocktail knowing that the other person intends to use it for suicide.

Euthanasia is an act whereby one person (usually a physician) lethally injects another person, usually after a request.

Several of the assisted suicide bills have language that can be interpreted to permit euthanasia.

Assisted suicide bills are usually designed as an application process for obtaining a lethal dose.

For instance the Maryland assisted suicide bill HB 0643 may permit euthanasia (homicide) because it doesn't require the person to self-administer. The Maryland bill doesn't protect the conscience rights of medical professionals either.

The Massachusetts assisted suicide bill can also be interpreted to permit euthanasia.

The New Hampshire assisted suicide bill gives physicians the right to write a lethal prescription but the term self ingest is not found in the main text of the bill. Only within the life insurance section is there a statement that may be construed as limiting the act to assisted suicide where it states:

Neither shall a qualified patient’s act of ingesting medication to end such patient’s life in a humane and dignified manner have an effect upon a life, health, or accident insurance or annuity policy.

Even this statement does not refer to self-ingestion.

The New Hampshire bill permits euthanasia by giving a physician the right in law to write a lethal drug prescription, but it does not limit how the lethal drugs can be used.

New Hampshire assisted suicide bill will create a perfect crime (Link).

Assisted suicide bills are intentionally written in a deceptive manner, so that if legalized, the legislation can be interpreted in a wider manner. Further to that, the assisted suicide lobby has no intention of maintaining the "safeguards" in the bills. These "safeguards" are simply mean't to sell assisted suicide to the legislators.

Hawaii is debating the expansion of its assisted suicide law only one year after it came into effect, and Washington State is examining all of the safeguards, while Oregon expanded its assisted suicide law last year.

Clearly assisted suicide bills are not what they appear to be.

Assisted suicide laws are the most egregious form of discrimination against disabled and "terminally ill" people.

Published in the New Hampshire Union Leader on February 14, 2020

By Mike Reynolds, Not Dead Yet

For over two decades the independent people of New Hampshire have been solidly against assisted suicide. Since 1996, the New Hampshire legislature has studied or voted down this proposed law so many times it takes two hands to count them all.

Assisted suicide laws are the most egregious form of discrimination against severely disabled and “terminally ill” people. How can we call suicide a public health crisis for most people while facilitating the suicides of older, ill and disabled people? Should we not be doing everything we can to support such persons in having the best possible health care and home care so they have quality of life for however long they have?

With the experience of the laws in Oregon as a guide, the question of assisted suicide becomes, quite frankly, incompatible with New Hampshire values. [The] state motto, “Live Free or Die,” means we reject government interference in our daily lives. Oregon state government’s promotion of an assisted suicide program administered by the health care system means pushing people towards assisted suicide through denials of coverage for treatment and in-home care, covering up abuses, and ignoring incorrect prognoses that lead people to think they are dying when they are not.

The numerous flaws in HB 1659, the “Death with Dignity Act,” are so obvious that New Hampshire should reject this absurd legislation again. With HB 1659, the government would be promoting suicide for what in the preamble it calls “mental anguish over the prospect of losing control and independence, and/or embarrassing indignities.” This is a direct attack on the thousands of disabled Granite Staters who maintain their independence and dignity by directing aides to perform their care.

While assisted suicide proponents depict assisted suicide as only a last resort for people with advanced cancer, Oregon’s doctors have written lethal prescriptions for individuals whose qualifying medical diagnosis for assisted suicide was reported as chronic conditions like diabetes, gastrointestinal disease, arthritis, arteritis, sclerosis, stenosis, kidney failure, and musculoskeletal systems disorders.

As in Oregon, under bill HB1659 a person can be considered “terminal” and therefore eligible for assisted suicide simply by refusing medication they need. By that definition, people who have epilepsy, ongoing infections and other illnesses that can be managed with medication can qualify. This legislation is not limited in scope and is actually far more dangerous than the proponents want to admit.

A report released in May 2018 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that from 1999-2010, suicide among those aged 35-64 increased 49% in Oregon as compared to a 28% increase nationally. In Oregon, the rate of suicide is 21 percent above the national average and their rates of teen suicide have even been higher. There is a clear problem of suicide contagion.

While the bill proponents claim there are safeguards, there is absolutely no oversight once the medication is picked up from the pharmacy. Under the Oregon law and the proposed legislation, a “friend” can encourage an elder to make the assisted suicide request (“just in case”), sign the forms as a witness, pick up the prescription, and even administer the drug (since no independent witness is required). To be perfectly clear, the current bill being debated only discusses “self-administration” of the lethal drugs in the bill’s preamble; nowhere in the substantive provisions is the word mentioned.

This law is also vague about who can access it, but it would be far easier for an eighteen year old with a serious medical condition that could be controlled with medication to access this law than it would for the same eighteen-year-old to access cigarettes or alcohol.

There is nothing compassionate or caring in this bill. Instead it could serve as a template to encourage and even pressure the most vulnerable in our society, our older and critically ill populations, to hasten their deaths. And by giving legal immunity to everyone involved, it creates a legal framework where elder abuse (up to and including homicide), which nationally impacts about 10% of elders, gets a free pass. Please contact your legislators and have them oppose this very dangerous legislation.

Mike Reynolds is a member of Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group opposed to assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide goes against our values

This opinion article was published by the Concord Monitor on February 11, 2020

By Steven Wade
Executive Director of the Brain Injury Association

House Bill 1659 effectively gives physicians permission to prescribe drugs that result in patient suicide. We have serious concerns about the potential impact on New Hampshire’s at-risk population if this bill passes. It normalizes suicide as medical care and corrupts the doctor/patient relationship.

New Hampshire suicide rates are up nearly 50% over the past 10 years. New laws have been passed recently to beef up suicide prevention efforts because there are populations, including veterans, teens, people with disabilities, brain injury survivors and the elderly “pre-disposed” to suicide for reasons including depression, lack of autonomy and inability to engage in activities that make life enjoyable.

New Hampshire has a suicide crisis and has set an ambitious goal of zero suicides. This bill works against that goal. What sort of a message does it send to at-risk people if New Hampshire passes a law that says suicide is an easily achieved option?

The exploitation of the elderly is another significant problem in New Hampshire. This bill could enable exploiters to misuse the law to the detriment of those dependent on others for their care. Anyone with ulterior motives like convenience and cost will have the power to steer vulnerable members of our society – who are not necessarily dying – in the direction of death instead of care. Instead the state should be investing in greatly expanded access to palliative care and mental health services for those at-risk populations relying on the state for their care.

This bill calls into question the state’s power to set standards for quality of life. If it’s a terminal illness predicted to last six months now, what might it become in the future? Laws like this inevitably expand over time. If New Hampshire opens the door to assisted suicide, we will have to face whatever might be on the other side of that door.

HB 1659 goes against the very essence of who we are as citizens of New Hampshire. If we want to show that we value the lives of at-risk teens, the elderly, people with disabilities and veterans who have fought for our country, we should be focusing our energy on providing them with care, not with death.

(Steven Wade is the executive director of the Brain Injury Association of New Hampshire in Concord and a member of the N.H. Coalition Against Assisted Suicide.)