Amidst all the political hub-bub of the presidential election and Barack Obama’s re-election as President of the United States, most news media ignored the narrow defeat of the Massachusetts ballot initiative termed the “Death with Dignity Act.”
At the end of the night, the margin was slim. With 99.9 percent of the vote in, the Death with Dignity Act, which would allow a physician to prescribe medication to terminally ill patients seeking to end their life, lost 51.1 percent (1,516,584) to 48.9 percent (1,453,742).
Early in the debate over the initiative, it appeared that it would become law easily with some 60 percent of polled voters supporting it, but conservative religious groups including four Catholic Bishops and the Massachusetts Medical Society, campaigned heavily against the measure.
Had the Death with Dignity Act passed, it was feared that it would be the tipping point and that similar legislation would rapidly spread across the remaining states. Currently, only four states permit physician-assisted suicide – three by ballot initiative and one by court mandate.
The following is an excerpt from a recent article in the Boston Globe:
“In a statement, Rosanne Bacon Meade, chairperson of the Committee Against Assisted Suicide, said that while some votes remain to be counted, the efforts to stop the measure had been successful. She added that she hoped the result would spark discussions about how to improve medical care at the end of life.
“We believe Question 2 was defeated because the voters came to see this as a flawed approach to end of life care, lacking in the most basic safeguards,” Meade said in the statement. “A broad coalition of medical professionals, religious leaders, elected officials and, voters from across the political spectrum made clear that these flaws were too troubling for a question of such consequence.”
“Tuesday’s vote demonstrates that the people of the Commonwealth recognize that the common good was best served in defeating Question 2,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley said in a statement.
Massachusetts would have followed Oregon and Washington, which have passed similar initiatives to allow terminally ill patients to seek life-ending drugs from physicians. Donations to opposition groups, which raised nearly $2.6 million, came from far-flung Catholic dioceses, fueled in part by fear of a domino effect if the measure were to gain a foothold in Massachusetts.
Proponents of the measure raised about $700,000.
Other efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide in New England have failed. In 2000, a ballot initiative in Maine lost by a close margin. Legislative efforts to pass a similar bill in Vermont and New Hampshire have been defeated in recent years.
Voters said they formed their opinions about the controversial ballot initiative after careful consideration, informed by personal experiences with family members and by concerns about the safeguards written into the law.”
You can read the full article by staff writer Carolyn Johnson on the Boston Globe website.
Last Updated: November 6, 2018