The city of Tucson is urging state lawmakers to consider a “Death with Dignity” law modeled after one in Oregon.
The Tucson City Council last week unanimously voted in favor of a “memorial” — a recommendation that the Arizona Legislature consider enacting a “death with dignity” or “aid in dying” law where terminally-ill, mentally competent adult Arizonans would be allowed to make a written request, “for the prescription of medication for the purpose of ending life in a humane and dignified manner.”
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is, “opposed to physician-assisted suicide,” spokesman Daniel Scarpinato wrote in an email, responding to the Tucson City Council’s vote. He did not elaborate.
Proponents of “death with dignity” do not refer to that law as “physician-assisted suicide.” Advocates say Oregon’s law is restricted in such a way that the patients must take the life-ending medications themselves — the doctor’s only role is prescribing them. And they say it’s not suicide because were it not for terminal illness, the patient would not be choosing to die. Whether those subtleties will make a difference with Ducey is unclear.
While assisted suicide has long been a hot button issue in the U.S., supporters gained ground with publicity surrounding 29-year-old California resident Brittany Maynard. Facing terminal brain cancer, Maynard moved to Oregon so that she’d be able to end her life on her own terms. Maynard died using a prescription of life-ending drugs on Nov. 1, 2014.
This year, California passed its own “End of Life Option” law, becoming the fifth state to allow assisted suicide. Doctors in Vermont, Montana and Washington may also legally prescribe life-ending drugs to certain patients.
After being approached by members of a national nonprofit organization called Compassion & Choices, Tucson city councilman Steve Kozachik and Vice Mayor Karin Uhlich brought the issue to the council.
Tucson is the second Arizona city to make such a recommendation, according to Compassion & Choices. Bisbee was the first in September.
Judyth Willis, a member of Compassion & Choices, is advocating for an Arizona law on behalf of her son.
Suffering from advanced prostate cancer that had metastasized to his bones this past spring, 56-year-old Gunnar Christian Willis asked his hospice doctor to help him die.
But his doctor told Willis, a Tucson-area mining technician, that his hands were tied — Arizona law forbids such action.
So Willis made a legal choice to stop eating and drinking, refusing even water. He passed away at home on May 3 — and his mother says watching him die of dehydration over 10 days was beyond agonizing.
She doesn’t want other families to go through what she experienced, which is why she’s supporting an Arizona “death with dignity” law.
“It’s not suicide,” Willis said. “It is ending terminal disease and terrible suffering and taking the burden of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) off the grieving family.”
But criticism of such measures remains strong, especially in the religious community. Opponents of the California bill argued, among other things, that lower-income people who are sick and vulnerable could be coerced to end their lives because of the cost burden they place on families.
Since the Oregon law was enacted in 1997, a total of 1,327 people have had “death with dignity” prescriptions written and 859 patients have died from ingesting life-ending medications prescribed under the act, the Oregon Health Authority says.
The most common reasons those people gave for ending their lives were loss of authority, loss of ability to engage in activities that make life enjoyable, and loss of dignity, Oregon health officials said.
While cities cannot enact state laws, getting approvals from local government bodies is a way of sending a message to the legislature, said Sanda Schuldmann, a member of the Tucson chapter of Compassion & Choices. Schuldmann said she is now talking to Oro Valley about supporting a similar measure.
She says the Oregon law has the necessary checks and balances, including signatures of two doctors independently verifying that the person is terminally ill with an illness that will cause their death within six months. Also, the patient getting the lethal prescription drug combination must be “mentally competent” and administer the drugs themselves.
Schuldmann, a 68-year-old musician, said she got involved in Compassion & Choices because she was inspired by Brittany Maynard, whom she found courageous. A self-described “control freak,” Schuldmann wants to dictate her own choices at the end of her life, she said.
Schuldmann and other “death with dignity” supporters do not see the Oregon law as assisted suicide since the person using the lethal drugs would not want to die were it not for their illness. Maynard wanted to live, but was dying of a malignant brain tumor and chose to end her life on her own terms, Schuldmann said.
“It’s a sensitive topic and I was a little concerned about bringing it to the council,” Kozachik said. “But this applies to medically competent adults, who I believe should have the liberty to make an informed decision about end-of-life issues.”
Kozachik says someone who is terminally ill should be able to die in a compassionate way, rather than being hooked up to machines and living in an “undignified manner.”
“This whole conversation is a result of medical advances that are giving people life-prolonging, heroic medical interventions instead of nature taking its course,” Kozachik said. “I’ve never been a proponent of caving in on an important issue because of the slippery slope argument.”
Any “death with dignity” law would need to be vetted by the medical community and others with expertise, “to make sure that there are no abusive options,” Kozachik said.
“Thirty years ago, I’m sure this would have had an ice cube’s chance. … But look at the demographics of this state, of our country now,” Kozachik said. “Legislators aren’t immune, either. Our hope is that they’d set aside any rigid ideology and sit back and think about their own lives and families and friends.”
A poll conducted by the Arizona-based Behavior Research Institute earlier this year found that a majority of Arizonans want the ability to get a prescription allowing them to end their own lives if they are terminally ill. In Pima County, 56 percent of the respondents were supportive of such a proposal.
A 2014 Gallup Poll found the more frequently an American attends religious services, the less likely he or she is to support assisted suicide. Less than half of those who frequent their places of worship weekly are likely to support the idea of a doctor “ending a patient’s life by some painless means,” compared with 82 percent of those who go less often, the poll found.
“It’s an important conversation that people for some reason are reluctant to discuss,” Schuldmann said. “I don’t understand why we are taught to plan for a rainy day, for a wedding, for so many things. It is a very familiar notion to Americans to plan. But people hesitate to talk about death and I think it is very important to have this conversation for so many reasons.”
Schuldmann said the decision to approach the legislature by going to municipalities first was strategic.
“I really think that in the state of Arizona the number of legislators sensible enough to follow the people’s wishes is very limited,” she said. “It is a very problematic legislature. Our feeling is that we need to prove to legislators that this is truly the people’s wish.”
