Category: Assisted suicide

Historic abortion ban repeal one signature away from becoming law after it passes House

The NM Political Report

Susan Dunlap

The bill that would repeal a state statute that criminalizes abortion care in New Mexico is now headed to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk after the House of Representatives passed it on a 40 to 30 vote.

This is a priority bill for Lujan Grisham and she has indicated that she would sign it into law. 

The House of Representatives took up SB 10 instead of HB 7, which are mirror bills. SB 10 already passed the state Senate by a vote of 25 to 17 on February 12, and was amended to clarify the bill’s title. Each chamber must pass identical legislation before it can be sent to the governor.

Just as during the Senate floor debate, Republicans in the House attempted to amend the bill and argued for hours over keeping the section of the law that is considered by some healthcare workers as a refusal clause. But the New Mexico Medical Society and other physician groups support the law’s full repeal and the lead sponsor of the House bill, Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, a Democrat from Mesilla, argued that there are already provisions in place to protect healthcare workers who object to providing care. . . [Full text]

Portugal’s euthanasia law goes for constitutional review

AP News

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s president on Thursday asked the country’s Constitutional Court to evaluate a recent law passed by parliament that allows euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill and gravely injured people.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said in a statement the legislation appears “excessively imprecise,” potentially creating a situation of “legal uncertainty.” . . . [Full Text]

MAID for mental illness opens dangerous doors

Hamilton Spectator

K. Sonu Gaind, Sephora Tang

Last week the Canadian Senate voted to recommend a “sunset clause” on the exclusion of mental illness as a sole eligibility criterion for medical assistance in dying (MAID).

If ratified by the House of Commons, within 18 months people suffering solely from a mental illness will be able to request MAID. Some argue that prohibiting access to MAID for mental illness is unconstitutional and discriminatory. Unfortunately that claim is based on a superficial notion that anything being treated differently reflects undue discrimination. In reality, significant differences exist between illnesses that are mental in nature and those that are physical, such that removal of this prohibition would be more than merely discriminatory, it will be fatal for those who most need protection and care within a protective legal framework. . . [Full text]

Palliative care experts warn of ‘deeply flawed’ assisted dying Bill

‘There’s no proper oversight or scrutiny… this legislation could lead to a slippery slope’

The Irish Times

Sorcha Pollak, Jennifer O’Connell

Planned legislation before the Oireachtas which seeks to legalise assisted dying in Ireland is “deeply flawed” and leaves the population open to “significant risk”, consultants in palliative medicine have warned.

Last October, the Dáil voted to pass the Dying with Dignity Bill to committee stage by 81 to 71 votes after the three Government parties allowed a free vote on the legislation.

However, experts working in end-of-life care have expressed concern about the wording of the Bill, tabled by People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny . . .[Full text]

How Bill C-7 will sacrifice the medical profession’s standard of care

Amendments to assisted dying laws are a stunning reversal of the central role of the medical and legal concept of the standard of care

Trudo Lemmens, Mary Shariff, Leonie Herx

As Parliament discusses Bill C-7’s expansion of the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Act, one issue has been conspicuously absent from public debate, even though it has major implications for medicine and for patients: the impact of the bill on the role of the medical profession in determining the standard of care, as it applies to MAiD.

The government introduced Bill C-7 in response to the decision of Quebec Superior Court Justice Christine Beaudouin (in the Truchon case), who ruled unconstitutional the current law’s limiting of MAiD to those whose natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.”. . . [Full Text]