Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act could become more accessible to people with terminal illnesses, say advocates who are supporting a bill that is winding through the state legislature.
The bill would remove requirements on Colorado residency and waive mandatory minimum waiting periods for patients likely to die within 48 hours of requesting to end their lives.
Those are some of the major features of Senate Bill 24-068, which would make changes to the state’s End-of-Life Options Act. The proposal allows terminally ill individuals in Colorado with six months or less to live to request medication from a medical professional that would end their life.
Meghan Reese, of Centennial, supports the bill because of her mother, Kathleen McDaniel, who wanted to utilize medical aid in dying, but was unable to access it.
“Her last days were painful and traumatic, and I will continue advocating on behalf of other terminally ill patients to honor her life,” Reese said.
She added that the bill “is important because every individual should be aware of and have access to medical aid in dying as an end-of-life option, since it is legal in Colorado”
Gina Gentry, campaign manager for Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group for the cause, said the bill would also allow certain registered nurses with prescriptive authority to act as the attending and consulting provider and reduce the waiting period between the first and second oral request from 15 to seven days.
“I think it’s important to add – no patient, doctor, nurse, or pharmacist – would be required to participate,” Gentry said. “Health care facilities can opt-out and would be required to post their policy on their website.”
The bill is advancing with some bipartisan support. On March 8, it cleared the Senate by a vote of 24-11 and is expected to be heard by the House Health and Human Services Committee in the weeks ahead.
The bill has attracted some opponents, however, including the Colorado Catholic Conference. In a statement emailed to the Centennial Citizen, the conference said that the bill is making “additional expansions to the unjust physician assisted suicide” law.
“The Catholic Church opposes Colorado SB24-068 for its promotion of a culture of death, and making bad law even worse with expansions that are both unconstitutional and unethical,” the statement says. “Physician assisted suicide targets the most vulnerable in our society, corrupts the medical practice and distorts the patient-doctor relationship by violating a doctor’s commitment to the health of his patients.”
The statement also raised concern that vulnerable people, such as the elderly, those with disabilities and those who are ill are viewed as burdens.
“SB24-068’s expansion on an already unjust law to reduce the waiting period from 15 days to 48 hours, allow nurse practitioners to prescribe life ending drugs, and remove the requirement for Colorado residency, continues to violate human dignity and equality,” the statement concludes.
Dr. Cory Carroll, national medical director of Compassion and Choices, said the shorter wait time in between requests is important for patients and said the bill is a natural evolution for the act, which was passed eight years ago.
“I don’t think the bill will discourage those currently participating,” Carroll said. “As the years pass from 2016 more and more physicians have agreed to participate and I think this trend will continue.”
Reese hopes “that one day the stigma of having end-of-life options dissipates and terminally ill patients are able to access any option they feel is best for them.”
“I think we have further to go in ensuring terminally ill patients are not prohibited or deterred by others in deciding what their end-of-life journey looks like,” Reese said. “I hope that the beliefs of medical professionals do not impede the choices of patients.”
Jacob Shannon, of Centennial, also wants lawmakers to pass the bill.
“I support the bill because it’s going to help expand access to people who want to make this as a choice at the end of their life,” Shannon said.
His mother, Lynda Shannon Bluestein, lived in Connecticut where there is no access to medical-aid-in-dying services. Shannon said his mother utilized services in Vermont in January after suing the state. He said she assisted in changing Vermont’s law to allow people out of state to utilize its services.
“My mom was a force of nature in a lot of ways,” Shannon said. “She was able to do that because it’s simply a constitutional matter for out-of-state residents.”
Shannon said while his mother ended her life on her own terms, it was still hard for her.
“She wanted this decision and this autonomy over her body and deciding how her life was going to end so much that she sacrificed one of the most important things – being in her home, in her neighborhood, with her family when she passed,” Shannon said. “It was that important to have this choice.”
For Shannon, advocating for this bill is a way to keep his mom’s legacy alive and to help people have a choice.
“What I hope for the future with medical aid in dying is that with time and people’s understanding of the process that medical aid in dying can become more available nationally,” Shannon said.
Nine other states and Washington, D.C. allow medical aid in dying options, according to Compassion and Choices.
California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington have made changes to their laws similar to the measures being considered by Colorado lawmakers.
States that have decreased their waiting periods for medical aid in dying have seen an increase in services.
In a study by Kaiser Permanente, 33% of qualifying patients who requested to use California’s End of Life Option Act died before completing the eligibility process in 2018, including 21% during the then mandatory 15-day waiting period between oral requests.
After lawmakers changed the waiting period in 2021 from 15 days to 48 hours, data shows nearly 50% more qualifying, terminally ill people were given access to aid-in-dying medication.
For more information on the bill visit leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB24-068.