A contested bill that would allow doctors to prescribe a terminally ill patient medication to end their life failed to move forward on Tuesday during a House Health and Human Services Committee hearing.
HB74, sponsored by state Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City, failed to pass the committee on a 2-9 vote.
Tammy Allred, a Utah resident, spoke in support of the bill and shared her experience about becoming her late daughter’s caretaker after her daughter was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as ALS.
Her daughter Kylie Kaplanis, 27, who was diagnosed with the incurable neurological disease in 2020, told her mother she wanted to end her life when she could no longer take care of herself. Over the next two years, Kaplanis slowly lost function of her body and could no longer brush her teeth or drink a glass of water on her own.
“From the very beginning of a diagnosis, she talked a lot about wanting to move to a state that would allow her to leave this world with dignity on her own terms,” Allred said, fighting her tears. “She did not want to be in pain and she did not want to lose her dignity. She hated that she was frozen in her own body and suffered from this tremendous disease.”
Dailey-Provost, along with other supporters, said she took issue with opponents of the bill that called the policy “physician-assisted suicide.”
“For patients like Tammy’s daughter when life is not an option anymore, the very least we can do is give them an opportunity to not spend the very end of it in agony and pain and fear and anxiety,” Dailey-Provost said.
Laura Bunker, co-founder of Family Policy Resource, an advocacy group that supports policies impacting life, family and religious freedom, spoke out against the bill, arguing that the state should promote care for patients instead of lethal drugs.
“We are opposed to this bill because Utah is a state that cherishes life and we don’t end suffering by ending the sufferer’s,” she said.
Jean Hill, a government liaison and director of the Office of Life, Justice and Peace for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, also opposed the bill and discussed her father’s experience after being diagnosed with a terminal disease. Hill said she wished her 84-year-old father and her family were given access to a mental health professional to process the depression and fear associated with his diagnosis.
“We need to end the debates about assisted suicide so that we can get to the much harder but far more compassionate business of figuring out how to ensure people have the medical care they need in their final moments,” she said. “Rather than telling them as a matter of state law, they’re better off dead, Catholic Diocese believes every life has value no matter how dependent we become on others.”
Dan Diaz said when his late wife, Brittany Maynard, was diagnosed terminal brain cancer, they moved from California to Oregon to access the state’s “Death with Dignity” law. Since her death, Diaz has advocated for the policy in 18 different states.
“Most people prefer not to even talk about death, but when you’re 29 years old like Brittany was ... a terminal disease, in her case of brain tumor, punches you in the face you all of a sudden quickly recognize that this is not a political issue. This is not a religious issue. This is a medical issue,” Diaz told the committee.
Former Democratic state Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, who introduced a similar bill while serving as a lawmaker, spoke in support of the proposed legislation.
“I continue to believe that Utahns should have the option in consultation with their families, doctors and faith leaders to make end-of-life care decisions that are right for them in the final distinct stages of a terminal illness,” she said.
Republican state Reps. Candice Pierucci and Steve Eliason each thanked supporters of the proposed legislation for telling their personal stories, but ultimately said they couldn’t support the bill.
In the U.S., about 10 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized similar “Death with Dignity” laws.
Follow @kimbojorque