I wonder who argued for it?.
Found the name of the doctor who introduced that 1968 bill in Florida. He was a Florida Representative at the time. Thank goodness the bill failed, it was absolutely despicable.
(from an interesting article by a FSU professor on the whole history of the "right-to-die" movement in America)
Public awareness about the right to die in Florida reached a highpoint in 1967,
when WALTER SACKETT, a retired Miami doctor, made the issue his personal crusade after winning a seat in the Florida House of Representatives. In his profile of Sackett's work in The Right to Die, Glick credits this novice legislator with being the first to put the topic on a legislative agenda anywhere in the U.S. Sackett put forth the state's first living will legislation, arguing that terminally ill patients and their families should be spared unwanted and futile medical treatment. Not content with that, Sackett went a step further and advocated euthanasia for indigent retarded patients who were wards of the state.
It was that extra step that doomed any chance for passage of right-to-die laws in Florida for the next several years. Despite gaining a national forum for his views (he appeared on 60 Minutes and the Phil Donahue and the Dick Cavett talk shows), Sackett watched his bills fail repeatedly. His proposals ignited advocates for the disabled and retarded, who mounted a ferocious fight against him. The battles were largely unnecessary, Glick writes, since Sackett's bills were immediately killed in committee anyway. Branded a dangerous extremist, Sackett suddenly found it very difficult to get anything done in the Legislature. The issue cost him a bid for reelection in 1976.
(and the following interesting comment)
Florida's struggle with this emotionally charged question bears watching from a national perspective, argues FSU political scientist Dr. Henry R. Glick (Ph.D. Tulane). In one of the latest commentaries on the hotly debated right-to-die issue, Glick depicts Florida, with its high elderly population, as a bellwether state in bringing the issue to the fore in national politics.
http://mailer.fsu.edu/~research/RinR/Final.html