Voters in Maine May Rule on Physician-Assisted Suicide

Advocates of a physician-assisted suicide bill plan to take their case directly to the people, a strategy designed to circumvent lawmakers who have consistently rejected the measure.

Supporters will gather signatures at polling places in November in hopes of putting the measure on the ballot in 1999 or 2000, said Susan Shell, coordinator of the PRO 916 campaign, which takes its name from the legislation sponsored by state Rep. Joseph Brooks.

“We haven’t decided for sure which year,” she said July 22.

Fred Richardson, a former legislative sponsor of the bill and president of PRO 916, cited poll results showing 71% of Mainers support doctor-assisted suicide as evidence that the public would be receptive to his group’s campaign.

“Mainers know what is right as they demand choice, patient autonomy and better palliative care--a fact that has followed passage of similar legislation in Oregon,” Richardson said.

A spokesman for Maine’s Roman Catholic diocese said plans for the initiative came as no surprise. The church will vigorously oppose the measure.

The Maine bill, modeled on the statute approved by Oregon voters 1994, would allow terminally ill patients to request a prescription for medication to commit suicide. A 15-day waiting period would be required between a patient’s first request for the drugs and the time the pills could be obtained from a pharmacist.

Before a prescription could be written, two doctors would have to determine that the patient has less than six months to live. The patient also would have to be mentally competent and not depressed.

To force a referendum on the proposal, PRO 916 must collect voter signatures amounting to 10% of the total vote cast in the November race for governor. The Legislature has the option of enacting initiated bills, but traditionally chooses to leave the decision to voters.

Physician-assisted suicide was rejected by voters in Washington and California. Voters in Oregon supported it twice, once by a narrow margin and the second time, in 1997, by a margin of roughly 3 to 2.

Shell said her group anticipates that the campaign in Maine will generate plenty of interest.

“It’s a very contentious issue, so I imagine there will be some strong opposition. There are a lot of people who feel strongly on both sides of the issue,” she said.

Marc Mutty, spokesman for the Diocese of Portland, said the church will oppose the measure through its participation in the Coalition for Compassionate Care of the Dying, made up of more than 100 organizations and individuals, many of them physicians.

“I see us playing a very aggressive role in opposition to this,” Mutty said. “We’re looking particularly at doing as much education as we can among the populace about the implications of this kind of legislation, and at the alternatives.”