On November 10, the New Hampshire House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee voted 14-3 to reject a bill that would legalize assisted suicide in the Granite State. The committee's negative recommendation now goes to the full House for a vote in January.

While the Judiciary Committee recommendation was that the bill should be rejected, this does not mean the New Hampshire House of Representatives will accept the recommendation. There still could be an effort to defeat the recommendation, although it is unlikely.

The two sides to this crucial vote, of course, read the results differently. Rep. Nancy Elliott, a committee member, said, "It's not the function of government to encourage suicide in the young or the old…It's a prescription for elder abuse."

Sandy Issacs of Compassion and Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society, which promotes assisted suicide, vowed that "We'll be coming back with something more people might be willing to pass." New Hampshire's legislative rules make it nearly impossible for the issue to be brought up earlier than 2011.

The defeat was made possible because of a coalition that included disability rights groups, pro-lifers, and the Catholic Church.

In their joint testimony urging a "no" vote on HB 304, two disability rights groups--DREDF and New Hampshire ADAPT--said, "Disability rights organizations overwhelmingly oppose assisted suicide because we see it as worsening the damaging stereotypes society has about disability. The widespread view of disability as a fate worse than death--which is a stereotype that most people with actual disabilities do not agree with--has justified making a deadly exception to public policy on suicide."

National Right to Life hailed the outcome. "This recommendation by the Judiciary Committee is encouraging to all of us who know that legalizing the direct killing of the sick and those with disabilities will mean death, rather than treatment, for the most vulnerable among us," said Jennifer Popik, J.D., legislative counsel for National Right to Life's Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics. "The Committee rightly saw that any supposed 'safeguards' that promoters of assisted suicide attempt to sell are nothing more than an illusion."

Popik pointed out that not only in New Hampshire, but also in states across the nation, "those who care about life must educate ourselves, and then our neighbors and legislators, about the dangers of euthanasia."

These state-by state-struggles will only become increasingly more important, particularly in light of health "reform." Despite apparent prohibitions, in the newly passed House Health Restructuring bill, advance care planning provisions were included that could include counseling on assisted suicide.

There are two relevant provisions that could lead to federal facilitation of direct killing. One relates to repeated senior counseling in Medicare. (Section 1233 reimburses Medicare providers for "advance care planning consultations" with senior citizens.) The other relates to insurers that want to participate in the newly created "Insurance Exchange."

Both sections state that they do not authorize "promotion" of "suicide" or "assisted suicide." But it only makes sense that if information about its availability is provided in states where assisted suicide is legal, we will be told the information is only making patients aware of "legal options," not actually promoting assisted suicide.

There is also the way a section in the statutes of both Oregon and Washington State pertaining to what most people recognize as the legalization of assisted suicide explicitly provides that what these state laws authorize "shall not, for any purpose, constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing or homicide, under the law."

In light of this, it is troubling that the final drafters of the two sections in the House Health Restructuring Bill mentioned above rejected the inclusion of a federal definition of "suicide" and "assisted suicide" based the existing federal Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act.

Why is that important? Because this opens up the possibility that providing information about the option of obtaining lethal prescriptions in these states would not be construed as providing information about "suicide" or "assisted suicide."

As more states contemplate physician-assisted suicide, the implications are clear: ever larger portions of the population may well be counseled over and over of their "right" to assisted suicide.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part One