For the fifth year in a row, Maryland lawmakers are proposing a bill which would legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state. The Maryland State Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee heard testimony for the Richard E. Israel and Roger “Pip” Moyer End-of-Life Option Act in a hearing on Feb. 28.

The act would allow adults mentally capable of making health care decisions with a prognosis of six months, to request aid-in-dying medication that would be self-ingested.

Last year, a similar bill passed in the Maryland House of Delegates before being shut down by the Maryland State Senate in a tie 23-23 vote. The Maryland Catholic Conference remains opposed to assisted suicide, joining with the Maryland Against Physician Assisted Suicide coalition in efforts to oppose the bill. Dozens of both proponents and opponents attended the hearing to testify for and against the End-of-Life Option Act.

Father John Dillon, pastor at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Derwood, Maryland, ministers at the Casey House, an all-hospice, acute care inpatient medical facility in Montgomery County. The priest offers Anointing of the Sick and any last sacraments to people being cared for at the hospice.

“As I accompany patients to the end of their life’s journey, I’ve witnessed that many often feel that they are worthless or a burden,” he said in his testimony. “They see the sacrifices their family and friends have made for them and feel ashamed that in their condition they cannot reciprocate.  This is not so, they are precious in God’s eyes and to their loved ones. 

“These patients need this reassurance to be reminded that their lives are valuable and worthy. I oppose the End-of-Life Option Act because it devalues the lives of the residents in our state. It would create policy that allows people who may be filled with anguish at how their lives have impacted their loved ones to end their lives. These patients need our compassion and our care, not life-ending drugs,” Father Dillon said.

Dr. Joseph Marine, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins University, also testified against the proposed bill, saying that the bill would undermine how physicians are taught to heal.

“The End-of-Life Option Act represents shockingly dangerous and misguided public policy which violates many principles of patient’s safety and does nothing to address the real needs of Maryland patients with advanced disabilities and illnesses,” he said. “Assisted suicide is not medical care. It has no basis in medical science, practice or tradition.” 

In an interview prior to the hearing, Dr. Marine told the Catholic Standard that he remains “hopeful” about this year’s pending vote, as he said he continues to find that the more people learn about assisted suicide and the dangers of this bill, they are opposed. He has been actively working to stop this bill since it was first introduced five years ago. 

“The End-of-Life Option Act thus provides a new license for doctors to end the lives of vulnerable patients with broad legal immunity and no real oversight or accountability,” Dr. Marine said in his testimony. “We have some of the best healthcare in the world right here in Maryland. We should use it and not undermine our healthcare system with assisted suicide.”

Dr. Annette Hanson, the chair of the Legislative Action Committee for the Maryland Psychiatric Society, testified to the bill’s dangerous precedent it would set on suicide prevention efforts.

“It is a very bad public policy that undermines the suicide prevention efforts. It portrays suicide as a noble and brave act of self-autonomy,” she said in an interview with the Catholic Standard. “At any time, more than 200,000 people in Maryland are struggling with suicidal thoughts. This is a message that they will also hear.”

Her colleague, Dr. Angela Guarda who is a psychiatrist running the Johns Hopkins Eating Disorders Program, also testified, sharing how she has had several patients transferred to her program from hospice care who were named “terminally ill” by other doctors, and they have made a full recovery.

“Under this bill, they could be dead. Most are young women,” she said in her testimony. “Recovery feels out of reach to many with anorexia, to their exhausted family and to their doctor. Patients with anorexia are often cared for by general practitioners and not by specialists, not even by psychiatrists. In fact, most psychiatrists can recognize anorexia, but have no training to treat it. Faced with a patient who is 50 pounds, in renal failure, having seizures all because of their eating disorder, many doctors may think that this bill makes sense. And the starved patient can easily be influenced to view aid-in-dying as the best way out of an intolerable situation.” 

A similar bill has also been introduced to the Maryland House of Delegates, but no date has been set for the hearing.