Latest version of end-of-life bill passes House

The Delaware House of Representatives approved the latest version of an end-of-life options bill March 18 by a 21-17 vote with three absent. Similar versions of the bill have been considered over the past decade.

No Republican voted for the bill; Rep. Stell Parker Selby, D-Milton, was absent.

“The bill I bring before you today is the same as last year’s bill with one technical revision to include a definition of physician for consistency and to clarify that a physician must be licensed in Delaware,” said Rep. Eric Morrison, D-Glasgow. “House Bill 140 allows Delawareans in their final days of life to choose to limit or avoid terrible suffering.”

In order to take advantage of the option, Morrison said a patient would have to be diagnosed with a terminal illness with a six months or less life expectancy.

“Patients may not take advantage of end-of-life options for chronic disability or mental health issues,” he said.

A patient must request the medication and administer it themself; at least one medical or mental health professional must find the patient has the ability to make an informed decision on their own and is acting voluntarily, he said. 

The Ron Silverio/Heather Block End of Life Options Bill copies the work of former Rep. Paul Baumbach, D-Newark, who worked on the issue for years, eventually using the same for a bill that passed the General Assembly last session but was vetoed by then-Gov. John Carney.

Block was a Lewes resident who lobbied for the bill after she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, which took her life in 2018. 

In 2015, Baumbach first introduced the Death with Dignity Act, which never made it out of committee. In 2017, Baumbach’s End of Life Options Act never made it to the House floor for a vote. He introduced House Bill 140 at the end of the legislative session in 2021, but the bill had no movement in 2022. It moved out of committee in May 2023, but sat dormant until April 2024, when the House passed it 21-16 with four absent.

In the Senate, the first vote failed, but the bill passed a few days later, 11-10. After a summer of public speculation about the bill’s fate, Carney vetoed it Sept. 20, and with little chance of gaining the needed three-fifths vote to override the veto, the bill was defeated.

House Republicans questioned whether Delaware would become a destination for assisted suicide.

“Doctors are not incredibly accurate with prognosis,” said Rep. Valerie Jones Giltner, R-Georgetown, a registered nurse who has worked in the healthcare field. “We all know somebody who they gave six months to live, and it’s another year-and-a-half before they died.”

Jones Giltner also questioned the chain of command for the lethal drug concoction that would be used to terminate a life, and the drugs used in the mixture.

“With this lethal concoction of drugs, some patients take 10 days to die. They vomit, they have seizures … it is not pretty,” she said. 

The bill now awaits action in Senate Executive Committee.