Legislation allowing terminally ill patients to obtain a doctor’s help to end their lives failed to advance in the General Assembly.
The legislature’s public health committee, which held an impassioned public hearing on the topic last month, will not vote on the bill before their Wednesday deadline.
“It was close. You could argue it was nip and tuck for a while,” Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport and the co-chair of the committee, told reporters after their meeting Monday. “But we didn’t have the votes and we’ll leave it at that.”
Tim Appleton, Connecticut director of Compassion & Choices, which advocates for so-called aid-in-dying laws across the country, said it was “beyond disappointing” that the bill was defeated.
“[It] will leave terminally-ill people who begged lawmakers for this right, without a choice at the end of their lives,” he said in a written statement. “It is especially unfortunate in a year when the bill came so far with so much grassroots support.”
Steinberg supports aid in dying and said the idea has been steadily gaining momentum, both in Connecticut and nationally. Lawmakers in New Jersey recently passed a law allowing for aid in dying, making it the seventh state to allow the procedure.
“This is as close as we’ve ever gotten,” he said.
A legislative committee has considered aid in dying legislation almost every year since 2013 but the bill has never been called for a vote. Former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy opposed aid in dying but Gov. Ned Lamont has said he thinks he would support such a measure.
Those in favor of the bill included the terminally ill and people who had watched their loved ones suffer as they died. They argued Connecticut should join the other states — Oregon, California, Colorado, Vermont, Hawaii and Washington — that permit aid in dying.
Critics of the bill include the Catholic Church, which believes life is sacred, and some prominent disability rights advocates, who feared such a law could be used to target vulnerable people.
The bill was among the most emotional ones tackled by lawmakers, and opposition centered more on philosophical and religious beliefs than on the partisan lines that usually divide lawmakers.
Steinberg said he doubts the bill would be raised in 2020, because the membership of the committee is unlikely to change until a new legislature is sworn in in 2021.
“It was disappointing we couldn’t get it done this year,” Steinberg said.
Daniela Altimari can be reached at dnaltimari@courant.com.
