Posted on 03/05/2004 1:57:53 PM PST by george wythe
Terminally ill adults would be able to obtain a lethal dose of medication from a doctor under legislation approved by a House panel.
The bill specifically prohibits mercy killings, lethal injections and active euthanasia and would require patients to obtain informed consent.
It also would allow an alternate doctor to prescribe the drugs if a patient's primary physician declined to prescribe the requisite lethal dose.
The House Judiciary Committee approved the measure by a vote of 10-5, after amending it to insert residency requirements to guard against people coming to Hawaii to end their lives.
It now goes the House floor. The full House approved a similar measure two years ago, but it was defeated in the Senate by a single vote.
Gov. Linda Lingle has said she opposes doctor-assisted suicide.
Voting against the bill Thursday were three Democrats and two of the committee's four Republicans.
The legislation is patterned after Oregon's 1994 law approved by voters that allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of medication, which the patient must take independently.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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