A momentum shift against assisted suicide

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Momentum is finally shifting against the legalization and expansion of assisted suicide. Twenty-three states have rejected bills attempting to legalize assisted suicide since the beginning of 2017, and these bills are now considered dead for the remainder of the year.

Why such unusual bipartisan consensus? In our profit-driven healthcare system, where care is expensive and assisted suicide is cheap, patients with terminal illnesses, people with disabilities, the elderly, and the poor are in grave danger of being pushed towards a death-too-soon. Assisted suicide policy injects government bodies and insurance companies with financial incentives into every single person's end of life decisions.

The states that defeated these bills to legalize or expand assisted suicide run the gamut politicalls, from New York and Rhode Island to Utah and Indiana. Such bills were defeated by votes in the legislature, died from inaction, stalled in committee or were completely withdrawn. A circuit court in Hawaii dismissed a lawsuit which asked the court to resolve that the criminal laws in the state should not apply to assisted suicide.

And there are four additional states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan – that are unlikely to act on similar measures this fall. Another indication that momentum is shifting in opposition to the expansion of this practice is states like Alabama and Ohio recently enacted laws to strengthen prohibition of assisted suicide. And a congressional committee passed an amendment to their appropriations bill to repeal the new DC law legalizing assisted suicide.


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