Colorado passed medical aid-in-dying legislation Tuesday, making it legal for adults who suffer from a terminal illness to take life-ending medication prescribed by a doctor. Known as Proposition 106, the measure is modeled after Oregon’s “Death with Dignity” law, which was passed more than 20 years ago.
According to the Denver Post, the initiative passed overwhelmingly, with more than 65 percent of the votes. With the new legislation, Colorado joins five other states with similar aid-in-dying legislation: Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, and California.
The aid-in-dying process is “proven, safe, and effective,” Kim Callinan, chief program officer for Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit organization that promotes end-of-life options including access to medical aid in dying, tells SELF. The legislation is carefully designed to ensure that there’s no abuse or coercion of patients.
According to the non-profit organization Yes on Colorado End-of-Life Options, a patient must be 18 or older, must be informed of all of their options for care, and a doctor must offer them multiple opportunities to take back the request for life-ending medication, which comes in the form of a barbiturate like secobarbital and works by slowing activity in the brain (in low doses, it's used as a sleeping pill). The process of obtaining a prescription typically takes four weeks or more to complete, Callinan says.
In addition, under the new law, two doctors will have to agree that a patient is mentally competent and has fewer than six months to live, the Denver Post reports. The person would also have to self-administer the required dose of the drug, and people with dementia or Alzheimer’s would not be eligible for the prescription because of how those illnesses typically affect mental faculties.
The new law is important because it expands the options that are available to people at the end of their lives. “It’s about respecting a patient’s values and priorities,” Callinan says. “It allows the potential to transform end-of-life care.” It also provides peace of mind for dying people and their families. “Aid in dying improves end-of-life care and eases people’s greatest fear, which is unbearable suffering at the end of their life,” Callinan says.
Medical aid-in-dying caught national attention in 2014 when Brittany Maynard, a woman dying of an incurable brain cancer, became an advocate for the cause. At the time, medical aid-in-dying was not legal in Maynard’s home state of California. Consequently, Maynard and her family moved to Oregon to utilize the state’s Death with Dignity Act, which she took advantage of on November 1, 2014, at the age of 29.
Callinan expects that we will continue to see more laws like Colorado's in the future. “There is a tremendous amount of momentum in the end-of-life choice movement,” she says. “This is an issue that is going to increase in intensity, and people are clear in that they want the choice.” In 2016, legislators in the District of Columbia and 19 states have introduced aid-in-dying bills: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin, per Compassion & Choices.
