{"id":3156,"date":"2025-02-25T10:37:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T16:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thexradio3.com\/news\/?p=3156"},"modified":"2025-02-25T10:38:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T16:38:50","slug":"lawmakers-weigh-whether-to-legalize-medical-aid-in-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/3156-lawmakers-weigh-whether-to-legalize-medical-aid-in-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers Weigh Whether to Legalize &#8216;Medical Aid in Dying&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p><em>Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, speaks at a legislative hearing on a bill that would legalize &#8216;medical aid in dying&#8217; (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>By ANDREW ADAMS <br \/>Capitol News Illinois<br \/><a href=\"mailto:aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com\">aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>CHICAGO \u2014 Lawmakers are considering legalizing a controversial medical practice that proponents say could ease suffering for the terminally ill.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s sometimes called \u201cassisted suicide,\u201d although physicians and advocates for the practice prefer the term \u201cmedical aid in dying,\u201d or MAID.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While Compassion &amp; Choices \u2014 a group that advocates for medical aid in dying policies \u2014 found a <a href=\"https:\/\/compassionandchoices.org\/resource\/polling-medical-aid-dying\/\">majority of Illinois<\/a> voters supported legalizing MAID in a 2023 poll, some critics call the process \u201cbarbaric.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The measure, contained in <a href=\"https:\/\/ilga.gov\/legislation\/billstatus.asp?DocNum=9&amp;GAID=18&amp;GA=104&amp;DocTypeID=SB&amp;LegID=157099&amp;SessionID=114\">Senate Bill 9<\/a>, is being backed by Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, who told her Senate colleagues at a hearing Friday that she supports the proposal because of her parents\u2019 deaths. Both her mother and father died after extended battles with cancer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou think the toughest thing you go through is watching somebody die, and you know what? It\u2019s not,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cIt\u2019s not as tough as watching somebody you love suffer and there\u2019s nothing you can do to ease that suffering. That is the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever gone through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Holmes\u2019 proposal would legalize MAID \u2014 a process where a doctor prescribes but does not administer a lethal combination of drugs \u2014 for patients whose doctors determine have less than six months to live due to a terminal illness. The patient then administers the drugs on their own at a time of their choosing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The bill contains several safeguards to prevent abuse, according to its proponents, including a waiting period to receive a prescription, a requirement that the patient receive a terminal diagnosis from two doctors, a requirement that patients prescribed lethal medication have sufficient \u201cmental capacity.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s meeting of the powerful Senate Executive Committee was a \u201csubject matter\u201d hearing, meaning no vote was taken. The bill will need more committee hearings, a vote in both legislative chambers and approval by the governor before becoming law.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ten other states and Washington, D.C., have all legalized some form of medical aid in dying. Oregon was the first state to legalize MAID in 1994.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Advocates for the proposal include patients with terminal illnesses, people whose loved ones used the procedure in other states and doctors who specialize in end-of-life care.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 2022, Deb Robertson of Lombard was diagnosed with neuroendocrine carcinoma \u2014 a rare and aggressive form of liver cancer. She asked lawmakers to give her \u201cpermission\u201d to take her own life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would give me the option to die peacefully and on my own terms,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cThere\u2019s a level of comfort in that.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Diana Barnard, a doctor in Vermont who offers MAID prescriptions, said most patients have \u201ca very clear understanding\u201d of what\u2019s an acceptable quality of life as they approach death.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have now 27 years of national experience with the practice that really shows these laws are working well,\u201d Barnard said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But the medical practice is controversial among doctors and disability activists.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Benjamin German, a doctor on the West Side of Chicago, said the &#8220;problem\u201d with the bill was its safeguards.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor some of my patients, these safeguards will be just tight enough for lawmakers to assume things will be okay and amply generous to allow abuse to happen,\u201d German said. \u201cPeople and organizations looking for ways to exploit this law, I fear, will find a way.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Disability advocates, meanwhile, say they worry about medical professionals mischaracterizing illnesses as terminal, misdiagnosing people or pushing vulnerable or marginalized people to consider ending their own life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs someone with a disability myself \u2013 I use a wheelchair \u2013 I can say firsthand that my life is often viewed as something to pity and not something to cherish,\u201d Riley Spreadbury, an independent living advocate from Joliet, said. \u201cIt\u2019s sentiments like these that make me incredibly concerned regarding Senate Bill 9.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MAID is also opposed by groups that express a \u201cconsistent life ethic,\u201d meaning they object to abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Those groups include the Catholic Church and non-religious groups such as Illinois Right to Life.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/capitolnewsillinois.com\/\">Capitol News Illinois<\/a> is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, speaks at a legislative hearing on a bill that would legalize &#8216;medical aid in dying&#8217; (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams) By ANDREW ADAMS Capitol [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3157,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lawmakers Weigh Whether to Legalize &#039;Medical Aid in Dying&#039; - Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/3156-lawmakers-weigh-whether-to-legalize-medical-aid-in-dying\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lawmakers Weigh Whether to Legalize &#039;Medical Aid in Dying&#039; - 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