Connecticut assisted suicide bill is likely dead.

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

For the past three years, the assisted suicide lobby in Connecticut has introduced an assisted suicide bill, paid lobbyists to promote the bill, and then a coalition of people opposing assisted suicide successfully defeat the bill.

Disability right group, Second Thoughts Connecticut, in coalition with other groups working in a unified manner, such as the Family Institute of Connecticut, have defeated the assisted suicide bills in Connecticut three years in a row.

An article by Daniela Altimari in the Hartford Courant states that assisted suicide bill - HB 7015 has likely died in committee again. The article quotes Michael Culhane who explaines how the bill was defeated:

Opponents have been counting votes since the bill was drafted in February and knew support was weak, he said. 

Culhane said the measure's failure to move forward was due to a large and diverse coalition that worked together to persuade legislators that the bill was bad public policy. 

It was a collective effort that produced the results that were announced today.

Stephen Mendolsohn, from Second Thoughts Connecticut, stated:

"We would urge the General Assembly to focus on improving hospice, palliative care and home care ... rather than continue to waste time on an issue that has now been rejected three years in a row without a committee vote,'' said Stephen Mendelsohn, a disability rights activist with the group Second Thoughts Connecticut. "Three strikes and you are out."

Assisted suicide bills, such as the Connecticut bill, are defeated when a unified coalition of people from differing perspectives and political ideologies work together for the sole purpose of protecting people from assisted suicide.

Thank you to the coalition leaders in Connecticut who successfully worked together again.

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Connecticut assisted suicide bill is likely dead.