August 15, 2016 02:53 PM UTC

"End of Life Options" Qualifies For 2016 Colorado Ballot

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Statement from Yes on Colorado End of Life Options:

The Yes on Colorado End-of-Life Options campaign today was notified that Coloradans will be able to vote for the measure on their November ballots. The measure will allow terminally ill, mentally capable adults who are Colorado residents access medication to that would allow them to shorten the dying process if suffering becomes unbearable.

“Today we are one step closer to ensuring that Coloradans have control over all of their health care decisions when facing terminal illness,” said Julie Selsberg, co-petitioner of the measure. “End of life decisions are very intimate and personal. This proposal encourages more discussion between patients and doctors about the patient’s end of life wishes and allows doctors who wish to provide this very compassionate care the ability to do so. “

Selsberg was at her father’s side as he slowly died from Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and helped him write an open letter to Colorado lawmakers asking them to authorize medical aid in dying…

The measure is modeled after Oregon legislation that has been in place for nearly 20 years without any proven instances of abuse or fraud. Like Oregon, the Colorado measure includes precautions to protect patients.

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A release from Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams announces that a statewide ballot measure to allow certain terminally ill patients in Colorado to receive physician assistance with ending their own lives has qualified for the 2016 ballot:

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams announced today that a proposal that would allow terminally ill Coloradans to obtain a prescription drug to bring about their deaths will be on the ballot this November.

Backers of the “Medical Aid in Dying” proposal on Aug. 4. submitted their signatures. A 5-percent random sample of the submitted signatures projected the number of valid signatures to be greater than 110 percent of the total number of signatures required for placement on the ballot.

The “aid in dying” measure, which would change state law, is the third citizens’ initiative to successfully make the ballot. Initiative No. 145 permits” mentally capable” Colorado adults who have been diagnosed with an illness and have less than six months live to self-administer a drug that would cause their death.

Euthanasia opponents are frequently, though not always, motivated by similar “sanctity of life” religious arguments that we’ve seen used in long-running debates over reproductive choice. The issue has gained prominence in recent years, especially after a young California woman with an inoperable brain tumor named Brittany Maynard put a human face on terminally ill Americans seeking a compassionate end to their suffering in 2014. Maynard moved from California to Oregon specifically to take advantage of that state’s “death with dignity law.” Five states including California now have such a law on the books.

Should Colorado be next? We expect this to be a debate that plays out both in the public and most private of spheres.