Vermont on Tuesday became the first state in the nation to change its medically assisted suicide law to allow terminally ill people from out of state to take advantage of it to kill themselves.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed a bill to remove the residency requirement under a law passed decades ago.
Last year, in a court battle, the state of Oregon agreed to stop enforcing its residency law requirement that allows terminally ill people to receive lethal drugs. He also agreed to ask the Legislature to remove him from the law.
Before Vermont lifted its residency requirement on Tuesday, it reached an agreement with a Connecticut woman with terminal cancer to allow her to use her law, provided she abides by other aspects of it.
“We are grateful to Vermont legislators for recognizing that the state line should not determine whether you die peacefully or in agony,” said Kim Callinan, President and CEO of Compassion. & Choices, a non-profit advocacy organization, said in a statement. “Patients regularly travel to other states for the best healthcare options. There is no reasonable reason why they cannot travel to another state to receive medical care in the event of death if the state they live in does not offer it.”
Vermont is one of 10 states that allow physician-assisted suicide. Critics of such laws say that without residency requirements, states risk becoming a destination for suicide tourism.
Mary Khan Bearworth, executive director of the Vermont Committee on the Right to Life, told a legislative committee in March that the practice “has been, and remains, a matter of controversy.”
“To be clear, Vermont Right to Life opposes the concept behind euthanasia and opposes the residency abolition movement because there are still no safeguards protecting vulnerable patients from coercion,” Bearworth said, adding that She has a number of concerns, including what liability Vermont might face if the drugs don’t end the patient’s life.
Supporters of Vermont’s medically assisted suicide law say it has strict safeguards, including requiring those who want to use it to be able to make and communicate their medical decision to a doctor. Patients must make two verbal requests to the doctor within a specified period of time and then submit a written request that they sign in front of two or more non-interested witnesses. Witnesses must sign and certify that the patients appear to have understood the nature of the document and were not coerced or unduely influenced at the time.
Linda Bluestein, 75, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Diana Barnard, a physician in Middlebury, southern Vermont, argued in federal court last summer that residency requirements violated the Constitution’s provisions on commerce, equal protection, and privileges and immunities. Barnard specializes in hospice and palliative care and sees patients from neighboring New York states who, like Connecticut, do not allow physician-assisted suicide.
Bluestein said Tuesday the change in Vermont means many more people in the northeast can take advantage of state law.
“I think more importantly, it will force other states, other jurisdictions that have medical care at death, to also consider their residency requirements,” she said.
For Cassandra Johnston, 38, of Clifton Park, New York, the news was “such a relief”: she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer last year and lives 40 minutes from Vermont.
“It gives me such peace of mind knowing that if I need this peaceful and compassionate option, it’s right next door,” Johnston said. “And it’s life changing for someone like me. It really is.”
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Rathke reported from Marshfield, Virginia.