CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - A proposal to allow terminally ill people to use medicine to end their lives was the topic of an Illinois Senate committee hearing Friday in Chicago.
“I love my life. I don’t want to die. I love my family,” said Deb Robertson of the western suburbs.
Yet, Robertson has a rare terminal cancer and wants to have the option of having doctors prescribe medicine that could end her life when she wants.
The proposed medical aid in dying bill (Senate Bill 9) would require two doctors to say a patient has six months or less to live before they’d be allowed to get such a prescription.
Illinois Senator Linda Holmes said there are more than 20 guardrails in place to prevent abuse of the law and was sparked by having watched both her parents suffer greatly before eventually dying.
“There are some people that are worried there could be coercion and somebody trying to convince a person to do this. Well, all of these guardrails prevent that from happening,” Holmes said.
Geriatric care Dr. Peter Jaggard spoke in opposition to the proposal, particularly the six month or less to live prognosis and the dosage a person would have to give him or herself.
“Prognostication is not a precise science. It’s a rough approximation and many people graduate hospice or go on to re-up for another six months,” Dr. Jaggard said.
Dr. Kevin Garner of Granite City agreed and said doctors estimating when someone will die is “very inaccurate.”
Dr. Jaggard believes a medical aid-in-dying law would eventually lead to expansions in other ways.
Dr. Benjamin German treats people on the West Side of Chicago and said the measure would “do more harm to the socially and economically vulnerable” who’d feel taking advantage of an aid-in-dying law would make things simpler for themselves or their families.
Senator Holmes said medical aid-in-dying is not the same as suicide.
“People who use medical aid in dying don’t want to die. They are going to die,” she said.
Chicagoan Suzy Flack’s son died of cancer at the age of 34. She said he used medical aid-in-dying to end his suffering in California, taking the drugs mixed with a raspberry sorbet.
“Two hours later, Andrew took his last breath. It was a peaceful and beautiful death. The sun was shining in the windows. We were all there to support him. Before he passed away, his last words were, ‘I’m happy,” Flack recalled.
Riley Spreadbury of Tinley Park works at the Disability Resource Center in Joliet and opposes a medical aid in dying law.
“When I first became paralyzed, I relied on a ventilator to breathe, and I could not move anything below my neck. I requested for my parents to help me die every day for much longer than the laughable five-day waiting period that this bill currently imposes,” Spreadbury said.
Spreadbury said that, since then, she’s become thankful for her life every day.
The bill would require two doctors to say a person has six months or less to live, the signatures of witnesses who do not have a financial interest in the death of the person, and that the ill person administer the drugs himself or herself.
Ten states and Washington D.C. currently allow for terminally ill people to legally end their lives with drugs prescribed by doctors.
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