It would have allowed patients to get a prescription to end their lives if they have six months or less to live.
Annapolis, Md KM) Legislation to allow persons who are terminally ill to end their lives with a prescription from a doctor failed on Wednesday in the Maryland Senate by a 23-23 vote.
It would have required a physician, who would write the prescription, to determine if these individuals have the capacity to make the decision to end their lives, and the prescription would self-administered.
Frederick County State Senator Ron Young (D) supported the bill. “I think if someone is in horrible pain and dying, and would just like to call their family in and say goodbye and take something and leave peacefully, that should be their choice,” he said.
State Senator Michael Hough (R) is opposed. “I’m very relieved, to be honest,” he said. “It’s a very weighty, heavy subject. And I just thought that once in the state of Maryland, we cross this bright red line that doctors taking them from healer and essentially allowing them to be killers, that we shouldn’t do that.”
A similar bill passed the House of Delegates.
The measure underwent some changes while in a Senate committee.
The quotes in this story come from audio provided by WDVM-TV.
By Kevin McManus