A new bill would make physician-assisted suicide legal in Michigan.
The bill is modeled after Oregon’s law, and requires two doctors to agree that the patient will likely die within six months.
The patient would also have to be over 18 years-old, and meet certain criteria before getting medicine from a doctor that will end their life.
The Michigan Catholic Conference, which opposes physician assisted suicide says this bill is unlikely to go far in the legislature.
Bill sponsor Sam Singh (D - East Lansing) acknowledges that because the state is so close to the end of its session, the bill will likely have to be reintroduced during next session, but he wanted people to start thinking about the issue.
“I do think times have changed and people’s beliefs around their end of their life and their own personal freedoms to make their own choices have changed,” he said. “So I wanted to at least start the conversation.”
While Michigan was thrown into the spotlight in the early 1990’s when Dr. Jack Kevorkian from Royal Oak was on trial for conducting multiple physician assisted suicides, a 1998 ballot proposal to legalize physician assisted suicide was voted down.
Singh says views have changed since 1998 and this bill would allow patients to have an end of life choice.
“So what we want to do is provide the ability for that individual who is seeing their end of life,” he said. “Knowing that there could be a painful death and want to give them the opportunity to employ a death with dignity type of legislation.”
Only four other states have laws allowing physician assisted suicide – Oregon, Washington, Vermont and California.
