The Garden State? New Jersey Allows Terminal Patients to Commit Suicide With Doctor's Help
New Jersey will become the eighth state to permit physician-assisted suicide by prescribed lethal medication.
The Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act allows terminally ill patients, who qualify, can receive lethal medication from a physician to be self-administered.
Gov. Phil Murphy (D - NJ) signed the bill in April which will become law on Aug. 1.
Today’s bill signing will make NJ the eighth state to allow terminally ill patients the dignity to make their own end-of-life decisions – including medical aid in dying.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 12, 2019
We must give these patients the humanity, respect, and compassion they deserve.https://t.co/iu2X7wOkDF pic.twitter.com/lY5nwXHPHk
The Christian Post reports that many in the medical community disagree with doctors ending lives that they swore to preserve. Physician-assisted suicide goes against the doctor's role as a healer.
Physician-assisted suicide can be difficult to control and the safety of patients may put the public at risk, causing more harm than good.
"With the signing of this bill to legalize assisted suicide, many vulnerable New Jerseyans are now at risk of deadly harm through mistakes, coercion, and abuse," said Matt Valliere, executive director of the Patients Rights Action Fund. "The so-called safeguards in this bill are hollow and fail to eliminate that risk."
Supporters, including Democrats and a small group of Republicans, say the terminally ill should have the right to choose a peaceful end.
The widow of late firefighter J.J. Hanson spoke about her husband's grim prognosis when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He was given four months to live but survived 4 more years.
"These laws abandon vulnerable patients like J.J. who can experience periods of depression at any point following their diagnosis," Hanson explained. "Once patients receive a lethal prescription, they are on their own."
"My greatest fear," she continued, "is that when assisted suicide becomes a medical treatment, it injects governmental pressure and profit-driven insurance decisions into everyone's end-of-life care."
"You cannot focus on the individual patient when you look at this legislation," she added. "We should be looking at improving multi-disciplinary end-of-life care, not assisted suicide."
California, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia have a similar law for terminally ill patients receiving lethal medication. The law was also passed in Maine, which is slated for September 2019.
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