Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer (D) signed legislation on Tuesday to legalize physician-assisted suicide for some terminally ill patients, making his state the 11th to allow medical aid in dying after nearly a decade of debate on the issue.
“This law is about compassion, dignity, and respect,” Meyer said in a statement. “It gives people facing unimaginable suffering the ability to choose peace and comfort, surrounded by those they love.”
Under the new law, which takes effect next year, adult, mentally-capable patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and are expected to die within six months can request and self-administer medication to end their lives.
Delaware joins 10 other states — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington — and Washington, D.C., which already have similar laws, commonly referred to under the phrases “death with dignity” or “medical aid in dying.”
Oregon was the first in 1994, but most of the laws have come about in the past decade, while Delaware lawmakers battled over the proposal. The Legislature narrowly rejected the measure last year, but Meyer pressed for its passage this session.
Delaware patients considering assisted suicide must be presented with other options for end-of-life care, including comfort and palliative care, and hospice and pain control, under the new law, and the state will require two waiting periods and a second medical opinion on their prognoses before the lethal medication can be prescribed to them.
Meyer and supporters of the measure hailed its passage as removing politics from a deeply personal decision.
“(The law) is about honoring the autonomy and humanity of those facing unimaginable suffering from terminal illness,” State Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend (D) said in a statement. “This legislation exists due to the courage of patients, family members, and advocates who have shared deeply personal stories of love, loss and suffering.”
The National Right to Life and other critics argued that death should not be an option for desperate patients, though.
“The horror of assisted suicide is that many of the most vulnerable in our society are pressured to ‘choose’ assisted suicide which normalizes a culture of death — devaluing the lives of the disabled, elderly and chronically ill,” Right to Life president Carol Tobias said in a statement on the Delaware law. “As society attitudes shift, legalization creates a ‘duty to die’ mindset and puts our most vulnerable members of society at risk.”
