Assisted suicide: Tools of Compassion -
Right-to-Die Legislation Reconsidered
By Diana Heil, The New Mexican, January 21, 2006

In 1995, a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide in New Mexico drew two hours of debate from people with terminal illnesses, health professionals and Catholic priests. A Senate committee tabled it.

Now, Kate Watson, an Albuquerque woman who started New Mexico Death With Dignity to promote that bill, says she is considering making another go of it in 2007. Currently, giving a patient a lethal dose of drugs to hasten death is a felony in New Mexico.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Oregon's Death With Dignity Act -- the only law of its kind in the nation. With doctors' help, 208 terminally ill patients have committed suicide there since 1997, when the law went into effect.

Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan and Washington have rejected assisted-suicide bills; California and Vermont are scheduled to consider proposed measures this spring.

Kate Watson stands in her Albuquerque home Friday in front of her ‘death books’ — books about death and assisted suicide. Watson has helped terminally ill people commit suicide for 23 years and is encouraged that a recent poll found most people in favor of legalizing the act.

"I think it's got a chance," said Dr. Trevor Hawkins of Southwest C.A.R.E. Center, an HIV/AIDS clinic in Santa Fe that serves seven counties in Northern New Mexico. "But I wouldn't bet any money on it."

Watson is encouraged that 76 percent of respondents in a recent KOAT-7 poll supported the concept of assisted suicide. Yet she and others know that what happened in Oregon also might make little difference here.

Any similar legislation in New Mexico would face strong opposition from the Catholic Church.

"That's something we would consider a serious sin," the Rev. Adam Lee Ortega y Ortiz of Santa María de la Paz Catholic Community said. "There's not even an exemption, not even any wiggle room."

Robert Schwartz, a University of New Mexico law professor and legal adviser to Watson, said state legislators turned against the bill in 1995 after a representative of the archdiocese addressed the Senate committee. "That's the reason it was killed," he said.

But he also said the measure went further in New Mexico than in almost any other state at the time.

Laura Clarke, vice president of the Santa Fe chapter of Compassion & Choices, a national, nonprofit group, said she also would support right-to-die legislation. But she's not optimistic it would go far, given that New Mexico is a "very, very Catholic state."

Before the 1995 bill fizzled, the New Mexico Medical Society studied the issue for a year and supported it for a while, said the group's director, Randy Marshall. But after the American Medical Association came out against it, the society followed suit. "It was a pretty interesting process," Marshall said.

Should the debate be waged again in 2007, the society would have to sort out its position again, he said. The AMA is still against such measures.

Hawkins of Southwest C.A.R.E. said he cautiously supports the concept as long as doctors would be limited to helping patients of sound mind who are suffering from intractable pain. He believes people reviewing a patient's application should be uninvolved in the patient's case, and that the final decision should lie with more than one person.

Joie Glenn, director of the New Mexico Association for Home and Hospice Care, said she couldn't say whether her group would support an assisted-suicide proposal without seeing it in writing. "The hospice movement and philosophy is in favor of helping the consumer transition comfortably; physician-assisted (suicide) isn't necessary if comfort is achieved," she said.

Hospice provides in-home nursing care, companionship, pain management and counseling for patients who are dying and their families. Its aim is to make the end-of-life process pain-free.

But Glenn said pain management is a big concern in New Mexico and resulted in new legislation last year. As a result, Gov. Bill Richardson appointed a pain council to examine shortfalls, identify best practices, and help consumers and health professionals get better results.

Starting Feb. 10 in Santa Fe, a new Power Over Pain program will teach clinicians how to manage pain better and how to guide patients in getting the comfort they need, Glenn said.

Contact Diana Heil @ 986-3066 or dheil@sfnewmexican.com.

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