MONTPELIER, Vt. -
"He was our best friend, my sister, brother, myself and others," Aaron Loomis said, crying.
Loomis recalls the pain of watching his father, Warren, suffer and die.
"With people that have cancer there's no drifting off at night, there's nothing like that. The cruel reality is that it's an awful way to die," Loomis said.
But Loomis says it didn't have to be that way. His father died of esophageal cancer. He wanted the right to end his own life. Now Aaron Loomis is fighting to pass a bill in his father's memory.
"I think people should be able to control their destiny to control how they die," he said.
The controversial bill brought before the Vermont Legislature in 2007 is on the docket once again. Even its name is up for debate; supporters call it death with dignity, opponents-- physician-assisted suicide. The bill would allow someone diagnosed with a terminal illness and given six months or less to live to choose to end their own life.
Ed Paquin, the president of the Vermont Disability Rights Coalition, says it sends the wrong message.
"They refer to their loss of function, loss of mobility, this, that and the other as if those activities are where your dignity lies," Paquin said.
Paquin has been using a wheelchair to get around since a spinal cord injury back in 1988. He admits before that year he felt differently about the disabled community.
"If I had thought about living my life and doing my daily activities on wheels instead of on my feet, I might have thought that wasn't a life worth living," Paquin said.
Paquin says it isn't the government's place to interfere with the doctor/patient relationship. He also raises concerns about the language of the bill, more specifically the part dealing with medical records. It states "medical records shall be subject to discovery only if the court finds the records are necessary to resolve issues of compliance." Paquin says this means records will be hidden and that this could lead to physician abuse. For example, if a doctor pushes a patient to end their life it might get lost in the paperwork.
"They're removing almost any possible way of addressing if there was some abuse on the part of the physician," Paquin said.
But advocates argue the language is very specific. Loomis says it's all about choices, so if a terminal patient didn't support this option they could elect not to take it and die of natural causes.
"Many people actually don't use it, I understand they actually feel great comfort with the potential of it," Aaron Loomis said.
To apply to die you must pass a mental health examination, show proof of Vermont residency, make two oral requests and a written request, be evaluated by an attending physician and a consulting physician, and be given the opportunity to turn down medicine by the attending physician. Each step must be documented. For Paquin, it's not enough.
"An individual could be pressured by all kinds of forces that there's no way of defining in and out of law," Paquin said.
"For those that want it, having something to end that suffering when you know you have another month of this, my father would look at us every day and say, 'what am I doing here? Help,'" Loomis said.
Now Paquin doesn't believe that terminally ill patients deserve to suffer and Loomis doesn't believe doctors should push patients to opt for assisted death. So while both sides seem black and white, the bill does introduce a gray area. Senators say it would bring widespread debate, which is why many are reluctant to bring it to the floor this session.
Related Story:
Right to Die, Part 2
