By Michael Bielawski
Vermont’s end-of-life assisted suicide policy will allow citizens from neighboring states with more prohibitive policies to travel to the Green Mountain State to legally end their lives with lethal drugs.
A new report on the state’s assisted suicide policy was submitted by Mark Levine, M.D., Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health to the State Legislature. The law legalizing assisted suicide was passed in 2013. In May of 2023 lawmakers modified the law so that now out-of-state residents will be permitted to engage in assisted suicide in Vermont.
The rate of assisted suicide appears to have increased in recent years. Of the 203 ‘reported events’ (lethal dose prescriptions), 85 have taken place since July 1, 2021. During that time, 84 death certificates of people filling the prescriptions have been reported. 72 died by what the Health Department calls “Patient Choice.”
The initial policy was passed in 2013, Levine’s report states, “the General Assembly passed Act 39 that allowed Vermont physicians to prescribe medication to individuals with a terminal condition with the intent that the medication be self administered for the purpose of hastening the patient’s death.”
Components include that there must be an oral or written request by the patient to the physician, all steps should be voluntary, the patient must be determined capable of making such a decision, and the diagnosis at hand must be confirmed by a second doctor and a non-interested witness.
Stats from the report breakdown the reasons why people engaged in assisted suicide. Most of the cases were cancer at 73% followed by neurodegenerative conditions at 8% and end of stage lung disease at 5%.
Some reasons are more vague. These include 5% where “multiple conditions”, 5% were “other events” and 1% was “unknown diagnosis or cause”.
Vermont a destination for assisted suicide?
Mary Beerworth, the Executive Director of Vermont Right to Life, has issued a statement on the policy. She commented on how this will make Vermont destination for assisted suicide.
“Vermont lawmakers have opened our state up to anyone from any state in the US, or anywhere in the world, to come here to obtain the lethal drugs,” she wrote.
She noted that at least one neighboring state has resisted this policy.
“The legislative body in Lynda Bluestein’s home state of CT has repeatedly declined to legalize physician-assisted suicide for the very same reasons that the Vermont Legislature declined to pass such a law for over a decade,” she wrote.
She noted that disabled folks in particular could be put at risk.
“The effort against such a law in CT is led by the disability community as they rightly fear that such laws will negatively impact their community. Also, as predicted by opponents here in Vermont, there has been a rise in suicide among the general population as committing suicide becomes more and more acceptable.”
She suggests that Vermont policies are undermining neighboring states.
“The Vermont Legislature, by offering out-of-state patients access to a lethal dose, has undermined the laws in neighboring states. This appears to be a new trend. For example, New Hampshire has enacted a law that parents of a minor daughter must be notified before having an abortion. Now, minor’s merely need to cross the border between the two states to evade NH’s duly passed law,” she wrote.
She added, “New Hampshire does not allow anyone to assist in another person’s death but now a NH resident need only cross the border to Vermont. … As also predicted by opponents of such laws, Vermont will soon become a suicide tourist destination.”
Vermont is one of ten states that offer assisted suicide, and they were the first to take away the residency requirement.
The development has caught the attention of social media pundits. @ClassicFilm3 wrote on X in July, “Vermont & Oregon now allow out-of-state individuals to receive lethal prescription drugs to kill themselves, Hawaii & Washington state no longer require the drugs be prescribed by doctors.”
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Life&Death
Finally, Vermont has stumbled upon something to stem the outflow of people from the Green Mountain State………….
As I always say to folks, if you want to understand why our legislature enacts the laws they do, look no further than the United Nations.
THE RIGHT TO END-OF-LIFE PALLIATIVE CARE AND A DIGNIFIED DEATH1 https://www.un.org/development/desa/ageing/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2017/11/ECLAC-contribution.pdf
Oh you might kill yourself when you go to the doctor’s now, so we need a 72-hour waiting period for doctors appointments. Everyone with a doctors appointment needs to show up, go home and wait 72-hours, and then return to the doctors appointment once they have cleared their head. Just like the 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases. They should probably extend that to ropes, exhaust pipes, bridges, and sharp instruments. They are so loving and caring. They will protect us.
You would think that the nihilistic trend would sort itself out when all those who are left are the people who wanted this legalized are gone.
Ah yes… the so-called “Roe” effect, albeit applied to a different domain.
Yeah, it was all supposed to be “entirely voluntary” in Canada too, yet now Canadian patients are OFFERED “Death with Dignity” by bureaucrats resembling sleazy used-car salesmen when the palliative costs get too high.
Having this law on the books is pure evil. You’re telling people — often lonely, depressed people — that they have no other choice. Yes granny, it’s okay if you choose the easy way out. You’ve had a good run. Step into my office…. let’s see if we can put some numbers together that work for you.
ABSOLUTELY VILE.
Jon Lynch, yes. Atrocious.
New logo for license plates. “Come Die in Vermont”. Or maybe, “Vermont, the Kill State”.
That is great! Print the t-shirts.
The door is open to physicians making the decision even if the individual hasn’t requested it. Families seeking to be rid of relatives can use this.
VT believes in personal freedom is what it sounds like. I personally don’t need daddy government to decide things for me
Sorry Aaron, the government did get involved….and that does not bode well for those who are vulnerable…there is nothing magic about the lethal dose…but in the hands of medical providers it suddenly looks more like medicine than what it really really is…..suicide drugs..
population control/// every day is a new way to kill people///
With apologies to New Hampshire, our new state slogan can be: “DIE FREE AND HIGH”
With apologies to New Hampshire, Vermont’s new state slogan can be:
“DIE FREE AND HIGH”
It’s really lame to call this suicide much less to believe that family members can use it to rid themselves of relatives. The Vermont law, Act 39 requires the patient to already be diagnosed with a terminal illness and 6 months or less to live. The cause of death is the cancer or other terminal illness, not suicide. Please stop acting so ignorantly. The article and the discussion merely convince me of your ignorance… aka ignoring vital facts.
Steve:
Before casting stones, look at Canada’s law regarding suicide and see if their law and similar ones in the E.U do not mirror Vermont, a.k.a the socialist State in the lower 48
Excellent point. Canada recently told a veteran in a wheelchair, not terminally ill, that had tried repeatedly to get a wheelchair ramp to instead seek assisted suicide to fix the problem.