FATE OF MEDICALLY VULNERABLE IN HANDS OF SENATE

By Burke Balch, J.D., Director, Dept. of Medical Ethics

A momentous debate will likely be joined early next year when the Senate votes on whether to end a filibuster of the Pain Relief Promotion Act, which the House of Representatives passed in October by a strong bipartisan majority of 271 to 156.

The crucial issue at stake is whether federally controlled drugs will be used to kill patients. To date the use of such drugs is the only method that has been used to kill patients under Oregon's legalization of assisting suicide.

New Senate Co-Sponsors

In the final days of the 1999 congressional session, three additional senators (John Breaux, D-La.; Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; and Strom Thurmond, R-SC) joined as co-sponsors of S. 1272, the Pain Relief Promotion Act, bringing the total to 35, including four Democrats. Its chief sponsors are Senators Don Nickles (R-Ok.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.).

Faced with strong Senate support for the act, opponents are vowing to use delaying tactics. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) have publicly pledged to filibuster the bill (meaning to debate it endlessly to prevent a vote). To move forward under these conditions, 60 of the 100 Senators will have to vote for "cloture" (a motion to limit debate) to enable its passage.

The urgency of Senate action has been heightened by developments in the states that raise the specter of a substantial expansion of legalized euthanasia beyond the borders of Oregon.

Ominous News in Five States

In Maine, an initiative that would legalize assisting suicide has been certified as receiving enough signatures to go on the November 1999 ballot. The wording of the ballot question makes its defeat a challenge. Proponents cleverly include no reference to suicide, euthanasia, or the use of lethal means.

Instead the proposal as worded asks only, "Should a terminally ill adult who is of sound mind be allowed to ask for and receive a doctor's help to die?" Many Maine voters might well be misled into thinking a "yes" vote simply supports good palliative care and pain relief.

In New Hampshire, the state Senate is expected to vote during the week of January 10 on a bill to legalize assisting suicide there. It was favorably reported from the Senate Judiciary Committee with only two dissenting votes.

Meanwhile, in California, a bill legalizing assisting suicide has been reported favorably from two Assembly Committees. It could come up for a vote in the Assembly any time after the state legislature reconvenes January 3.

In Alaska and Montana, courts have become involved. In Alaska, the state's highest court has set a deadline for briefs in a case that seeks to have assisted suicide declared a right under the state constitution.

In Montana, an October 26, 1999, state Supreme Court decision striking down a state law that had prevented physician assistants from performing abortions also contained language all but announcing that the court would mandate legalized euthanasia if a case specifically seeking that outcome were to be filed.

For example, the court declared that the Montana constitution includes a "fundamental right of self-determination and personal autonomy." The decision quoted the philosopher John Stuart Mill, who wrote that governmental power can never be "exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will ... [for his] own good, either physical or moral" - - only to "prevent harm to others."

The court relied on and quoted from works advocating a constitutional right to euthanasia. A justice who concurred in the decision noted that "the opinion sweeps so broadly as to encompass and decide such issues as the right to physician-assisted suicide."

Burke J. Balch, J.D., director of NRLC's Department of Medical Ethics, told NRL News it was critical that pro-lifers realize that we are on the eve of an absolutely critical vote in the United States Senate.

"We must fight the drive to legalize the killing of those deemed to have a 'poor quality of life' wherever the battle presents itself," he said. "But it is increasingly clear that ultimately only protective laws on the national level can be fully effective in safeguarding the lives of the vulnerable."

"With the Pain Relief Promotion Act, we have a tremendous opportunity to help stop euthanasia before it becomes entrenched in American law and practice," Balch said. "We stand now with regard to euthanasia roughly where we stood in the early 1970s with regard to abortion."

NRLC Executive Director David N. O'Steen, Ph.D. warned that "It is far more difficult to reverse a rooted evil than it is to stop it before it gets culturally accepted and widely practiced. With the fate of the vulnerable elderly and people with disabilities hanging in the balance, what we do - - or fail to do - - in the next few months may well determine the fate of countless of our grandparents - - and grandchildren."