House Panel Moves to Strike Down Assisted Suicide and It's 'Marketplace of Death'

A congressional committee is taking a stand for life by voting to strike down a new law in Washington, D.C. that would legalize assisted suicide. 

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee passed a resolution that would essentially block an assisted suicide bill passed by city leaders. The measure would allow a terminally ill patient to request a lethal prescription from a doctor to end his or her life. 

"I worry that assisted suicide will create a marketplace for death," said Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who heads the Oversight Committee. "I think it's fundamentally wrong."

Congress is allowed to step in and overturn the law because of the Home Rule Act of 1973, which allows congressmen to rule on laws in the District of Columbia. 

The vote to block the law fell along party lines, with 21 Republican members and 1 Democratic member voting to pass the resolution and 13 Democratic members and 1 Republican voting against it, Life News reported.

"Our country should never facilitate, encourage or tacitly accept measures that prematurely end the lives of its people," Chaffetz added. 

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed "The Death with Dignity Act of 2015" in December of 2016 and is protesting congressional intervention on the bill. 

According to The Washington Post , she is calling the vote "an egregious action" and said the committee has "sent a signal to D.C. residents that Congress has zero respect or concern for their will or the will of their elected officials."

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's congressional representative, said that lawmakers don't have to agree with the legislation to vote in favor of it. 

"We are asking you to agree with American doctrine that local laws are for local residents," Norton said.

Washington leaders have mostly relied on the Senate to block legislation affecting the district, but they rarely interfere with overturning it, Reuters reported. 

The resolution will have to pass in the House and Senate and be signed by President Donald Trump by Friday in order to stop assisted suicide from becoming legal. 

If the law is upheld, the district will join seven states that allow physicians to end the life of terminally ill patients.