The practice of killing human beings expanded in Democrat-run states again this year with new laws allowing assisted suicide as well as abortion.
According to the Baptist Press, Vermont and Oregon now allow out-of-state individuals to receive lethal prescription drugs to kill themselves, and Hawaii and Washington state no longer require the drugs to be prescribed by doctors.
The new laws passed despite widespread opposition from religious groups, disability rights advocates and the pro-life movement.
“Morally speaking, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are either forms of medical abandonment or medical malpractice, or both,” said C. Ben Mitchell, a research fellow with the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
Mitchell told the Baptist Press that human life is valuable from conception to natural death, and society should focus on providing the best possible palliative and comfort care to suffering patients.
“Loving God and loving one’s neighbor requires compassion, not lethal drugs,” he continued. “We must not abandon the dying to the medical-social technocrats. There’s never been a more important time and place for the church to be the church than in the care of the dying.”
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In ten states and Washington, D.C., however, people are turning to assisted suicide as an option to relieve suffering. Their laws allow medical professionals to prescribe lethal drugs to patients who are “suffering from an incurable and irreversible disease” or a fatal condition with less than six months to live. The patient is supposed to administer the drugs themselves.
Most states require doctors to prescribe assisted suicide drugs to in-state patients only, but a few just loosened these restrictions.
Here’s more from the report:
Vermont broke a barrier in May by becoming the first state to eliminate its residency requirement for people seeking a lethal prescription. The state permits telemedicine for assisted suicide, which means those who live outside Vermont can receive a fatal dose without ever seeing a doctor in person, wrote Tate Thielfoldt, an [Americans United for Life] legal fellow.
Oregon followed Vermont’s example by removing its residency requirement July 13, when Gov. Tina Kotek signed the legislation.
In April, Washington state lawmakers passed a bill allowing “qualified medical providers” to prescribe the drugs as well as doctors and reduced the waiting period from 15 to seven days, according to the report.
The Hawaii Legislature took similar action in June, allowing advanced registered nurses to prescribe the drugs and cutting the waiting period from 20 days to five, the report continues.
Assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state and Washington, D.C.
In Vermont alone, at least 116 people died by assisted suicide since 2013, according to state Department of Health data. Most of them had cancer or ALS. Hundreds of others have died in the past decade in Oregon, Washington and California.
Meanwhile, pro-life leaders, Christian organizations and disability rights groups are working to defend life. In April, four disability advocacy groups sued California, arguing its assisted suicide law discriminates against people who struggle with life-long ailments by treating their lives as less worthy of protection.
One plaintiff Lonnie VanHook, a U.S. Navy veteran from Oakland, California who suffered a spinal cord injury and is paralyzed from the neck down, said he had planned to die by assisted suicide until a doctor offered him real help.
“Due to the many barriers to access I face as a black quad, I have been in some dark places …” VanHook said. “Thankfully, my personal relationship with a physician saved my life, but this law makes me feel like my life, as a disabled person, is seen as not worth living by so many in society, even though I have lived independently for decades.”
