{"id":106469,"date":"2016-02-29T15:01:25","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T22:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bil-on-end-of-life-dies-end-of-life-bill-dies-in-colorado-legislature\/"},"modified":"2016-02-29T15:01:25","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T22:01:25","slug":"bil-on-end-of-life-dies-end-of-life-bill-dies-in-colorado-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bil-on-end-of-life-dies-end-of-life-bill-dies-in-colorado-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"Bil on end of life dies End-of-life bill dies in Colorado Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Rep. Joann Ginal, right, D-Fort Collins, hugs Carol Stork of Delta after her testimony in 2015 about the death of her terminally-ill husband, Albert. A similar bill introduced this year in the Legislature was killed without floor debate on Wednesday.<\/span>Associated Press file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 State lawmakers on Wednesday decided not to pursue a vote on legislation that would have allowed terminally ill patients to request life-ending medication.<\/p>\n

It became apparent after a caucus meeting earlier in the week that the sponsors of the legislation did not have the votes to send the bill through the Democratic-controlled House and onto the Republican-controlled Senate, where it also faced an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

The issue crossed political lines, with a handful of Republicans and Democrats expressing concerns about an issue that tested moral boundaries for some lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Sponsors were livid that they couldn\u2019t convince colleagues to have the full debate without agreeing to several amendments that they felt would have weighed the bill down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry that we could not help you. I\u2019m sorry that our state Legislature has failed you,\u201d Rep. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, a sponsor of the bill, said to patients. \u201cWe will continue to educate and to build support in your honor, and in the honor of those who testified last year and those who are no longer with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar legislation last year also failed.<\/p>\n

Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver, was more forceful, admonishing her fellow lawmakers for resisting the proposal, which came at a time when many lawmakers are up for re-election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe choice we made today was to give you the relief from having to have this conversation because we know many of you have deeply held convictions that make you uncomfortable with this bill,\u201d Court said. \u201cWe are doing you this favor to not have this debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opponents call the program \u201cassisted suicide,\u201d to the ire of proponents. They point to religious concerns and possible unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

Critics raise fears that the legislation would lead to elder abuse, in which a patient\u2019s heir might push for end-of-life options for financial gain. They also suggest that doctors might misdiagnose how long a person has to live.<\/p>\n

Despite the concerns, polling taken last month by Boulder-based Talmey-Drake Research and Strategy Inc. highlighted that 65 percent of Coloradans support the effort.<\/p>\n

Proponents are expected to take the issue to a statewide ballot.<\/p>\n

Dr. Lauri Costello, a family practitioner who recently moved to Durango, has been fighting for end-of-life options since moving from Washington, where patients have had access to life-ending medication since 2009.<\/p>\n

After having testified in support of the bill when it was in committee, Costello said she was disappointed to see it fail without full debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be pretty shameful for the Legislature when the people pass this,\u201d Costello said. \u201cThese legislators say they\u2019re representing their constituents, but all they\u2019re doing is saying. \u2018I don\u2019t believe in this, therefore I\u2019m not going to vote for it; I\u2019m not even going to give you the option to believe in it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

pmarcus@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sponsors unable to garner support for measure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,255,5528,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-death-and-dying","tag-euthanasia","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106469"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}