Schiavo backlash? Vermont bid to legalize physician-assisted suicide

[Bluebear]

"The next showdown over physician-assisted suicide could be in Vermont, where a group of citizens has begun an effort to pass a bill patterned on Oregon's seven-year-old law allowing doctors to prescribe suicide drugs for terminally ill patients who request them.

The bill went nowhere in the State Legislature last year, but was reintroduced in February and could be brought before legislative committees next month. Its supporters say they could make headway in Vermont, a state with a fiercely independent streak and small-scale government that tends to be swayed less by big outside campaigns than by what local citizens want.

In a Zogby poll conducted in Vermont in December, 78 percent of 500 randomly selected adults said they would support a bill to allow terminally ill patients to get medication from their doctors to hasten death.

Issues surrounding choices at the end of life have gained prominence recently because of the case of Terri Schiavo in Florida. But Michael Sirotkin, a lobbyist hired to push the Vermont bill, said the bill protects the right of people to have their end-of-life wishes honored, while the Schiavo case shows what can happen when a patient does not make those wishes known. The bill, he said, "is about patient choice, patient control."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/national/30dying.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Not surprising

[K-W]

2. That was one of the most common sentiments coming out of this

it totally backfired on the republicans and led many Americans to become fairly dedicated to need for assisted suicide.