Professor Margaret Battin:

I thank the Chair. I agree with Deputy Lahart about Dr. Komrad's presentation. He is a partisan in this discussion, as we all are, but he is a more ardent partisan and fails to see the positive aspects of this practice.

As for regulation, the committee is looking around the entire world at places where this is already in practice and noticing substantial difference. In the Netherlands, for instance, regulation occurs after the fact by review and regional committees, rather than the kind of before the fact regulation that goes on in the US. Switzerland has no oversight regulation. It is entirely dependent on the person providing what is there called euthanasia not having a personal interest or gain from this. Thus, a whole spectrum of kinds of regulation are possible. Is what goes on in Oregon and the US the best form? I imagine Ireland might follow the European model more than the US one, but that is of course entirely up to Ireland.

As far as there being no constitutional right to take one's own life, it is also true suicide is not a crime anywhere in the US and assisted suicide is one in all states, I believe. However, every statute in the US - Montana does not have a statute and all the other jurisdictions do - explicitly says this is not suicide and is not to count as suicide in any legal context, so when the rhetoric is this is suicide, that is not well founded. It is also the case the American Association of Suicidology issued a statement, which for full disclosure I was involved in, presenting the case that suicide in the conventional sense, that is, regarded as a tragedy and subject to the fullest prevention efforts, is simply not the same thing as participation in medical aid in dying. It listed 15 different focus points on which there are substantial differences, including differences in isolation versus interaction with physicians, family members and many different-----