So’s the Senate gonna pass a bill next week letting terminally ill Vermonters end their own lives?
That’s a damn good question!
Thankfully for you, Seven Days has been trolling the halls of the Statehouse haranguing your state senators, trying to figure out where they stand.
Our vote count right now? We think 12.75 senators are ready to back the bill — called ‘death with dignity’ by supporters and ‘physician-assisted suicide’ by opponents — and 13.25 are against it. Another four senators in the 30-member body are firmly undecided.
And then there’s Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, an opponent of the bill, who would break a tie. So that means supporters need to get a solid 16 votes, while opponents need just 15 nay-sayers. With a test vote slated for next Wednesday and a final vote likely to fall on Thursday, that gives advocates on either side of the issue less than a week to lobby their hearts out.
So who are the persuadables?
Let’s start with that fraction:
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I don’t believe it’s even up to the legislature. You are guaranteed under the Constitution the right to life. Therefore, by definition, you have the right to end it. The only real question is whether someone has the right to help you end it…too that end, it makes little sense to deny someone that help if they so choose. Realistically, that’s already been decided, if a doctor can reach over and shut off a machine keeping someone alive, that is in essence aiding that patient’s ultimate demise. Allowing them to squeeze a needle is not really any different.
Forgive me Senator Collins, but didn’t you run on opposition to the idea of physicians assisting a person in the act of suicide, now sounds as if he is leaning towards supporting physicians who want to participate in killing the very patients they take an oath to provide health care for? Yet, I suppose that is just another day in the political game! May God forgive you if you don’t see that people already have the choice to take the hopeless and faithless route of suicide. You should not allow for doctors to legally play God. Please consider what you stood for when you ran.
Only God has the authority to give life and to take it. Anyone who tries to usurp that authority, or empowers those that do will be held accountable on judgement day. Vote wisely senators. The tally will be recorded for eternity.
Senator Collins seems like he will not support a death with dignity bill because of problems it would cause in paperwork. He is concerned that people that are going to die in a short time and are suffering to take their last breaths would be put in an “awkward situation” if this bill passes. If they want to take of the paperwork problem they can. Vote yes for death with dignity.