The Democrat-led Maine Legislature voted to legalize assisted suicide.
The bill would allow doctors to prescribe terminally ill patients with fatal drugs. The House passed the bill on Monday by a margin of one vote, leading the Senate to pass the bill to the desk of Democratic governor Janet Mills with a vote of 19-16.
Critics of the bill said that legalizing assisted suicide will endanger vulnerable citizens. Matt Valliere, executive director of Patients Rights Action Fund, said that assisted suicide would put more pressure on those with inadequate insurance to cover costly care options.
“Assisted suicide public policy leaves those who already struggle to access health care … at a much higher risk for abuse, coercion and mistakes,” Valliere said. “The so-called safeguards in this bill are hollow and fail to eliminate that risk. We call on Governor Janet Mills to veto this bill and to focus instead on improving access to quality health care for all people of Maine.”
The bill received support from both Republicans and Democrats and targets patients who have received terminal diagnoses. Maine has the oldest median age of any state in the United States. – READ MORE