Key questions remain unanswered about physician-assisted suicide

Be careful what you ask for. That’s good advice for the entire community as we consider whether we want to make physician-assisted suicide legal in our state.

House Bill 2739, H.D. 1 has been touted by legislators as a bill that is “the strongest of any state in the nation and will protect patients and their loved ones from any potential abuse.”

Legislators made that claim before those on both sides of the issue put a halt to a dangerous clause that would have earned Hawaii the dubious distinction of being the first state in the nation to adopt euthanasia. Were it not for vigilant physicians, nurses and other concerned individuals who testified against HB 2739, that would have become law.

HB 2739, H.D. 1 is also flawed because although safeguards are placed on the front end to ensure a patient’s request for lethal drugs is made on his or her own volition, there are no safeguards in place after a patient has obtained that prescription. Patients waive their rights at that point, and the lethal drugs could very well be ingested against his or her will.

Safeguards raised in the 2017 session also remain unresolved in this current bill: physician education. Requiring patients to make a request for the lethal drugs to their attending provider and then to a consulting provider 20 days later as a “safeguard” is irresponsible. A number of respected physicians testified last year that many in the physician community are ill-equipped for assessing a patient’s palliative care needs. This very real concern of Hawaii’s board-certified, licensed and practicing physicians have been ignored.

The current physician-assisted suicide bill is partially modeled after California’s End of Life Option Act. Despite having its physician-assisted suicide law in effect for more than a year, California continues to struggle with identifying providers who are willing to prescribe dosages of lethal drugs or validate the need for physician- assisted suicide.

When physicians refuse, California patients are forced to find a doctor who is willing to be their attending provider and may not fully understand their health history, prognosis, ensure they are acting voluntarily and not being coerced into the decision. Doctor-shopping is most certainly not a safeguard.

Legislation this important is also based on unreliable results of snapshot polls and misleading surveys to justify their positions. They claim that 80 percent of Hawaii’s voters are in favor of physician-assisted suicide based on a survey conducted in November 2016. Results are not surprising, since the survey was commissioned by Compassion & Choices, the chief architect behind death bills across our nation.

Legislators have also pointed to guidance from another poll taken by an online publication in November 2017, which asked voters whether they would be in favor of a revised bill on medical aid in dying in this session. About 60 percent said “yes” even though at the time no bill was introduced and respondents could not have known what was in the bill. Using this poll is irresponsible at best because all opt-in polls are subject to self-selection and should not be used to formulate public policies.

But as some legislators would tell us, we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. After all, the time is “right” to pass physician-assisted suicide in our Aloha State. As the bill moves through the Senate for hearings, it’s not too late to get answers to these serious questions. If protecting the lives of Hawaii residents, including the most vulnerable in our state, is a religious belief that should not be imposed on others, then we should heed the warnings of the physicians and disability community members who don’t think this is right for Hawaii.

Questions remain unanswered and we believe passing assisted death by doctors will never be the right time regardless of what proponents might wish.

Walter Yoshimitsu is executive director of the Hawaii Catholic Conference, and Eva Andrade is president of the Hawaii Family Forum.