Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that enacts the End of Life Options Act, which authorizes health-care providers to prescribe medication to a terminally ill patient to bring about the patient's death.

Highlights:

• Establishes the End of Life Options Act, which authorizes an attending health care provider to give a terminally ill patient medical aid in dying as long as the authorized provider determines that the patient meets the following criteria (Sec. 3):

• Has capacity to make such a decision;

• Has a terminal illness;

• Has made the request for medical aid in dying voluntarily; and

• Has the ability to self-administer the medical-aid-in-dying medication.

• Specifies that any attending health care provider, caregiver, or other person who participates in providing end-of-life medication is not subject to civil or criminal liability or professional disciplinary action as long as the act is pursuant to the provisions of this bill (Sec. 8).

• Requires that the reason for death be listed on the death certificate as the patient’s terminal illness and not the aid-in-dying medication they consumed (Sec. 4).

• Specifies that assisted suicide, which the bill defines to be any act that consists of deliberately aiding another in ending their own life without immunity pursuant to the End of Life Options Act, is a fourth degree felony (Sec. 10).

Full Bill Text