Assisted-Suicide Bill Gets Hearing In Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) -- One of Maryland's most emotional and dramatic debates was at center stage in Annapolis Friday.
The state Senate's judicial proceedings committee heard testimony about the End of Life Option Act, a bill that would allow terminally ill people to request aid in dying.
Advocacy group Compassion and Choices met the Maryland Against Physician Assisted Suicide Coalition, and it wasn't the first time the two groups met.
Last year, the House passed a similar end-of-life bill only for it to tie in the Senate at 23-23. It failed by one vote.
"We need to roll up our sleeves, we need to get to work," a Compassion and Choices spokesperson said prior to the hearing. "We need to ensure that each and every lawmaker that the risk to implementing this legislation to vulnerable populations is zero and the benefits to everybody else is tremendous."
The Maryland Against Physician Assisted Suicide Coalition takes the opposite view.
"From insurance companies to family members who stand to inherit the house or Grandma's money, you're taking people who are saying 'This is my right to die' and you are putting it on others, whole communities in saying 'This is now your duty to die,'" Dr. T. Brian Callister said.
The stakes may seem high this year: in addition to last year's one-vote defeat, the newly-appointed chairman of the judicial proceedings committee, Sen. Will Smith, is in favor of the bill.
"This year, our committee has changed in composition so more folks are in favor of legislation, and the body has changed significantly," Smith said at a rally last month.
Gov. Larry Hogan has said he's willing to look at both sides of the issue.
