UPDATE: Md. lawmakers filing ‘end of life options’ bill
Maryland lawmakers will be sponsoring legislation to allow terminally ill patients to end their own lives by self-ingesting drugs prescribed by a doctor.
Supporters are meeting with legislators Wednesday, when lawmakers will introduce legislation.
It would allow mentally capable, terminally ill patients with six months or fewer to live the option to obtain prescription medication, if their suffering became unbearable.
The person's primary physician would prescribe only after he or she and a consulting physician confirm the sick person has a prognosis of six months or fewer to live, is mentally capable to make the decision and is physically capable of self-administering drugs.
Susan Peacock, a Salisbury resident, says she agrees a person should have a say over his or her life choices; however, more people should been in the decision making process.
"I think it should be an individual choice that's made together with a patient, the family, and physician and possibly their clergy person," Peacock says., "I'd like to see a death with dignity and yet, religiously, we believe that we don't end our lives."
Similar legislation has stalled in recent years in Maryland. Opponents have cited concerns that vulnerable people like the developmentally disabled could be pressured to end their lives.
