In the end, as always, it was all about Sen. Peter Galbraith.
Throughout this year’s labyrinthine debate over whether to allow terminally ill patients to end their own lives, the loquacious Democrat from Windham County has been behind every turn.
Wednesday night was no different.
By a vote of 17 to 13, the Senate amended the ever-changing end-of-life choices bill to ameliorate Galbraith’s concerns while still providing dying Vermonters a legal avenue to end their own lives. The latest version now moves back to the House, where it’s expected to pass, and then on to the governor, who has signaled he will sign it.
“I think what we have found here is something that strikes a balance,” Galbraith (pictured above) told his colleagues. “It isn’t perfect. It isn’t what I would like to have seen, but I think it accommodates what I think is in the best interest of Vermonters.”
The compromise essentially enacts for three years a state-sanctioned process for doctors to prescribe lethal medication to patients expected to live six months or less. In July 2016, that process would sunset, and be replaced by a stripped-down law simply indemnifying doctors who prescribe such drugs.
Gabraith and Sen. Bob Hartwell (D-Bennington) have long opposed the more comprehensive approach, which is modeled on a 1994 Oregon law. In February, they joined 13 opponents of the bill — along with the tie-breaking Lt. Gov. Phil Scott — in replacing it with the stripped-down version. But last week, the House voted 81-64 to return to the original Oregon-style language and send it back to the Senate.
That left the bill’s proponents with little option but to find some sort of compromise that could appeal to Galbraith or Hartwell without alienating its stronger supporters in the House.
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