Physician-assisted suicide bill heads to Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer after tense Senate debate

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Legislation allowing physician-assisted suicide in Delaware is headed to Gov. Matt Meyer’s desk after an emotional debate in the state Senate.

House Bill 140 would permit people with fewer than six months to live to request and ingest medication to end their lives. It provides safeguards including requiring two doctors to certify the patient is mentally fit, making an informed decision and acting voluntarily.

Similar legislation narrowly passed the General Assembly last year, but was vetoed by former Gov. John Carney. The vote in the Senate this year was 11-8, with two absences.

Republican state Sen. Bryant Richardson, R-Seaford, tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill. One of the amendments he introduced would have required all patients wanting to end their lives to be evaluated by a mental health professional to confirm they had decision- making capacity.

But bill sponsor state Sen. Bryan Towensend said the legislation’s language, which says that an evaluation is only required if an attending or consulting physician or advanced practice registered nurse is concerned that the patient lacks decision-making capacity, was adequate.

Richardson also took issue with the reporting requirements in the bill. The legislation says “the Department [of Health and Social Services] may share information collected under this section with the Division of Professional Regulation if the Department suspects that a health-care provider has failed to comply with the requirements under this chapter.” Richardson’s second amendment tried to change the word may to shall.

“I greatly respect the medical profession, but there are occasionally some bad actors,” Richardson said. “There needs to be a mechanism for the Board of Medical [Licensure] and Discipline to review a physician who makes multiple recommendations and this would spot the bad actors.”

But Townsend opposed the change, saying the oversight mechanisms Richardson was seeking are already in place, along with a separate duty from medical professionals to report violations.

All of the Republican senators opposed the bill, along with Democratic state Sens. Spiros Mantzavinos, Nicole Poore and Jack Walsh. Many of them said they were concerned it was a slippery slope that could lead to the guardrails being chipped away to allow people with disabilities, the mentally ill and the elderly to request the medication.

“What’s unthinkable is where this has happened in other places and what has happened – where this has led to a financial reckoning,” Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, R-Georgetown, said. “‘Well, it’s going to cost you more to treat you than to give you the pill and to put you down. You’re a burden to us. You know you don’t want to be a burden to us, do you? Go ahead and take the pill. Be done.’ That is what’s happened in other places. I don’t want to see that happen in Delaware.”

Townsend argued that legislation would allow terminally ill patients the ability to die with dignity and peace.

“They are looking for the respect of the law and the respect of lawmakers to give them a reasonable option with significant guardrails and consultation with medical professionals,” he said. “What to me is unthinkable is the idea that we would not provide that reasonable system and instead leave them the alternative that people do choose to exercise outside of a framework like this.”

Both newly elected Democratic state Sens. Dan Cruce, D-Wilmington, and Ray Seigfried, D-North Brandywine, voted yes on the bill. Gov. Meyer expressed support for last year’s version of the bill earlier this year.