Efforts in Michigan

By None, Death with Dignity Update, Feb. 17, 2006

1998
On November 3, 1998, Michigan State Referendum Proposal B was put before voters. The proposed law was entitled "Initiated Legislation to Legalize the Prescription of a Lethal Dose of Medication to Terminally Ill, Competent, Informed Adults in Order to Commit Suicide."

Michiganders rejected the broadly-worded Proposal by a 71% to 29% margin. The group Merian's Friends sponsored the bill but disbanded after its defeat.

The Citizens Research Council of Michigan (www.crcmich.org) provides the information below about Proposal B, which loosely defined physician-assisted dying and had very broad language.

1) Proposal B would have allowed a Michigan resident or certain out-of-state relatives of Michigan residents confirmed by one phychiatrist to be mentally competent and two physicians to be terminally ill with six months or less to live to obtain a lethal dose of medication to end his/her life.

2) Proposal B would have allowed physicians, after following required procedures, to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to enable a terminally ill adult to end his/her life.

3) Proposal B would have established a gubernatorially appointed, publicly funded oversight committee, exempt from Open Meetings Act, and whose records including confidential medical records and minutes, are exempt from Freedom of Information Act.

4) Proposal B would have created penalties for violating law.

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On November 4, 1998, the University of Michigan's The Michigan Daily provided the following analysis of Proposal B's defeat:

State Denies Proposal B

DETROIT (AP) - Voters in Dr. Jack Kevorkian's home state yesterday rejected a measure that would have made Michigan the second state with legalized physician-assisted suicide.

With 71 percent of the state's 5,998 precincts reporting, Proposal B was opposed by 70 percent and supported by 30 - 1,480,033 votes to 629,130.

Proposal B's defeat had been foreshadowed by polls, which in weeks before the election showed its support eroding under a multimillion-dollar advertising blitz by well-funded opponents. They included the Michigan State Medical Society, the Roman Catholic Church and Right to Life of Michigan.

"Surely the vote on Proposal B does not signal the end of the debate on assisted suicide," Dr. Cathy Blight of the anti-Proposal B coalition Citizens for Compassionate Care said in a statement.

"Some might argue that if B weren't so badly written, or if the proponents would have waged a better campaign, the outcome could have been different. But such speculation misses the message of this vote," said Blight, also president of the Michigan State Medical Society.

Opposition also came from Kevorkian, who says he has attended more than 120 deaths but considered Proposal B too restrictive and regulatory. Yesterday, he called the measure "crazy."

Dr. Ed Pierce of Ann Arbor, head of the Merian's Friends group behind the measure, lamented yesterday's defeat as partly expected.

"We started out the race being well ahead, and what happened was we went broke," said Pierce, whose group had just $75,000 to spend on its advertising, a sliver of the millions spent on opposing television ads he called "very effective."

"If we could have defended ourselves through 30-second spots on TV, we would have won."

Pierce said Merian's Friends - named after a woman who died with Kevorkian's involvement - will "sit back and lick our wounds for a while."

Dr. John Finn, Hospice of Michigan's executive director and part of the coalition against Proposal B, credited yesterday's outcome to voter education - not the advertising push against it.

"Voters were against the legislation itself, not against physician-assisted suicide," Finn said. "It may have been a different outcome if they had a very open-ended piece of legislation that would be accessible to all suffering patients, not just the terminally ill."

The measure would have allowed doctors in some cases to prescribe a lethal dose of medication for terminally ill patients wishing to end their lives.

Solid majorities of voters in all age groups opposed the measure, an exit poll found. Men and women, blacks and whites voted against it in similar proportions, according to the poll by Voter News Service for The Associated Press and five national television outlets.

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See recent related editorial on Dr. John Kevorkian

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