Cathy Baker

This bill is a tissue of lies. In order to accurately discuss and evaluate this, we must tell the truth and this bill is full of lies, its very name the “End of Life Freedom Act” - the definition of suicide is the voluntary taking of ones own life – this is an assisted suicide bill However, the bill states: IV.  Death in accordance with this chapter shall not be designated suicide or homicide. V.  A qualified individual’s act of self-administering medications prescribed pursuant to this chapter shall not be indicated on the death certificate. When a death has occurred in accordance with this chapter, the death shall be attributed to the underlying terminal disease. Why are we hiding what it is if there isn’t at least a subconscious acknowledgement that there is something wrong with it? Of even more concern, the text the suicidee must sign includes: “I request that my health care provider prescribe medications and that a pharmacist dispense those medications that will end my life in a peaceful manner ..." This perpetuates the myth that death in this manner is peaceful. That is not the case. The NIH has posted an in depth worldwide analysis by the British Medical Bullitan of drugs that are being used in assisted suicide. I will include a few items from their study and encourage you to read the full text yourselves. “Evidence from jurisdictions where assisted suicide is legal reveals that some patients who ingest the prescribed lethal drugs experience distressing complications. This is reflected in the data published by US states such as Oregon, where annual complication rates have been as high as 14.8% and patients are reported to have experienced difficulty swallowing or drug regurgitation, seizures and have even regained consciousness after ingesting the ‘lethal’ drugs.9” Thirty-three percent of the total deaths with recorded data since 2001 have taken over an hour, and 7.6% over 6 h. Time to death has become longer since the introduction of experimental drug cocktails ‘DDMA’ and ‘DDMP’. The median time to death after ingestion has doubled since 2015. Fifty-five percent of patients given ‘DDMP2’ (containing 15 g of morphine sulfate) and 45% of those given ‘DDMA’ have experienced a prolonged dying that lasted over 1 h.9 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9270985/ I have no doubt that the well intentioned idea of giving individuals control and the desire to allieviate suffering drives much of the support for this legislation. However, what is intended for good, is in its actual implementation, evil. 1. Medicalization of death turns our institutions of health and healing into an infrastructure for death 2. Many individuals become accessories to suicide, one step short of accessories to murder in effect if not in law. 3. Devalues the lives of those with illness and disability and, as Ethicist Leon Kass warned,a ‘right to die’ invariably becomes a ‘duty to die.’ It’s not a direct pressure, of course. It is more subtle: if you are suffering, why not be treated by this painless, ‘100% effective’ medical treatment? You are dying anyhow, even if it is a year or four decades from now, and other medical treatments are months away. Why not die? You feel in any rate like a burden to society, to your family, and to me, your caregiver. That is not a hypothetical: according to ‘MAID providers’ (their preferred description), over a third of their patients expressed that as at least one of their reasons to die. In Canada, this form of death is now the 6th leading cause of death in the country, after only 7 years of implementation. In Washington state, according to the physicians responsible for ending their patients’ lives, 10% of all assisted suicides in 2022 were because their patients were concerned with “financial implications of treatment.” That certainly doesn’t mean that a person who is dying and in pain must suffer: we have developed, even if we don’t fund it adequately, the most advanced form of palliative care, and dual intent for palliative medicine to treat suffering that shortens life is almost universally accepted in medicine and among faith groups. But to cross that line, to treat a patient’s suffering by ending the patient, is the difference between healthcare and deathcare. In the UK, Labour’s disabilities secretary, Sir Stephen Timms,  stated, “If we were to legalise assisted dying, we would impose an awful moral dilemma on every conscientious frail person nearing the end of their life …… If ending their life early were legally permissible, many who do not want to end their life would feel under great, probably irresistible, pressure to do so. There is no way to stop that happening.” You do not want to be an accessory to this culture of death. Vote AGAINST THIS BILL!