Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) Congress’ 30-day review period to review local District laws expired over the weekend, making the District the seventh jurisdiction to legalize assisted suicide. It came under the threat of interference from Republicans in Congress, who vowed to overturn the law passed by the District’s Council and signed by its Mayor. D.C. officials, though, are still concerned their fight may not be over.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, went as far as publishing an op-ed in the Washington Post, in which he outlined his opposing views of the law and Congress’ responsibility to overturn it. However, the measure was never taken to the House floor for a full vote.
“We do not believe that our Republican friends dared take this disapproval resolution to the House floor,” D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton told WMAL. “We would have hoisted them on their own petard.”
24 Republicans come from one of the four states with their own assisted suicide laws, Norton said.
The District’s law allows any terminally ill patient 18 or older to receive life-ending medicine, only after being diagnosed with fewer than six months to live by two doctors, and being cleared of any mental illness. Two witnesses must verify the decision is voluntary, and the drugs must be self-administered.
Norton, however, isn’t ready to stand down on the Hill.
“They’re looking for another way to accomplish the very same thing, probably through the appropriations process,” she said. “And we are committed to beating them in round two as well.”
Advocates echoed the same sentiment.
“We will continue to monitor Congress for attacks on D.C. or any of the six other states where medical aid-in-dying is authorized,” Compassion & Choices’ Jessica Grennan said in a statement. “We urge anyone who is eligible and considering this option to make the request of their doctor right away, since we cannot predict whether or when this right may be stripped away by Congress.”
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