FORT COLLINS — Rep. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, said a bill legalizing physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients in Colorado is being drafted and would probably be introduced later this year. Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver, is working with her on the bill.
Ginal spoke at a packed town hall forum of more than 150 people Saturday morning at the Harmony Library on end of life decisions and the concept of death with dignity, using Oregon’s law as an example of success.
“I feel it’s a choice we all need to make with how we live our lives, and death is a part of our lives,” Ginal said in an interview.
The bill, she said, is about personal choice for each individual to make that is between the patient, the family and physician.
While most of the responses Ginal said she’s gotten from constituents have been positive, she has heard from those who are developmentally disabled that expressed concerns. But Ginal said that’s why the bill is still in its draft phase — to make sure there are protections, that only a patient can make that decision for him or herself and that all loopholes and legal bases are covered.
Elaine Branjord, a retired nurse, said she tries to attend as many forums on the topic as possible. She said she also worked in a hospice in the early ’80s.
“It’s not suicide because the choice is between death and death,” Branjord said. “It is having that control.”
Additionally, Branjord said health care costs for a terminal illness are “unreal.”
Retired pastor Ruth Billington said she also worked at a hospice in 1979, and sometimes, no matter what providers do, the care is not adequate for a patient who is dying, so the choice of death with dignity is an important one.
“This is a topic we really need to talk about,” Billington said.
Dr. Jennifer Flemming, an anesthesiologist who spoke at the forum encouraged attendees to talk to their doctors about end-of-life care and continue to bring it up. It’s something, however, that she warned many doctors seem to have an aversion to discussing, including her own oncologist. Flemming, who has cancer, said she wishes she had the option of death with dignity when the time comes where her chemotherapy treatments no longer work — especially after seeing so many patients suffer.
“I can’t think of a single reason that this should not be a choice,” she said.
While many physicians don’t like to talk about death because they see it as a failure, according to Flemming, they need to talk about it before “the end” when a patient may no longer be able to make those decisions for him or herself.
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning from the Plymouth Congregational Church in Fort Collins also spoke about the issue from his church’s perspective.
“The issue is not simple and the answers are not universal but require compassion and nuance,” Chorpenning said. His faith, however, is why he supports this concept — to end suffering.
“The thing that ties all of us together is we are all going to die,” he said, noting that those who are religious and those who are not will all have the same end.
Roland Halpern, the regional director of Compassion and Choices in Denver, said in his presentation said surveys show that 90 percent of people ages 65 and older want to die at home but only 24 percent have been able to achieve it, and 55 percent of them will succumb to a terminal illness.
Halpern said even in Oregon, only about 60 percent to 65 percent of patients who get the prescription to end their lives use it, but they want to have that option. And he said there is a big distinction between this and euthanasia, which is organization doesn’t support.
Greg Whitehair, a professor of bioethics at University of Colorado School of Medicine, spoke to the crowd about current federal and state laws, writing living wills and assigning loved ones to serve as power of attorneys and medical proxies.
Saja Hindi: 970-669-5050 ext. 521, hindis@reporter-herald.com, twitter.com/SajaHindiRH.
