Politicians in Michigan’s House of Representatives recently introduced four bills aimed at legalizing physician-assisted suicide in the state, a move that Right to Life of Michigan President Amber Rosenboom has said will allow the government to turn its back on patients “under the guise of compassionate care.”
The bills (HB 5825-5828) include the Death with Dignity Act and several regulations for assisted suicide. National organization Death with Dignity has said the bills would expand Michiganders’ options for end-of-life care, but Rosenboom argued they would only put patients “at imminent risk of declining care and abandonment.”
“Turning our backs on vulnerable citizens and patients in their hour of greatest need runs counter to the core mission of healthcare, ultimately denying patients true dignity, care and compassion,” she stated in a press release, citing guidelines from the American Medical Association and the Michigan State Medical Society that maintain assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.”
Rosenbaum emphasized Right to Life of Michigan’s opposition to the bills and urged voters to demand better care for patients rather than “an expedient lethal option.”
According to the Escanaba Daily Press, a local outlet, the bills are similar to those introduced or passed in other states, requiring patients eligible for assisted suicide to be diagnosed by two physicians as having fewer than six months left to live, be considered mentally capable, consent verbally and in writing to the procedure, and administer the lethal medication themselves.
Right to Life of Michigan stated in the release that similar assisted suicide bills were introduced last term in the Senate, but those failed.
Assisted suicide has been a felony in Michigan since 1998. According to UPI, former Governor John Engler signed a bill banning it in response to Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s administration of assisted suicide to several people in Michigan in the 1990s, activities that earned him the nickname “Dr. Death.”