Colorado is set to become America’s third ‘suicide tourism’ destination under a new bill being considered by the state’s senate.
Assisted dying is already legal in Colorado, but the new bill would allow terminally ill people from anywhere in the US to travel to Colorado to end their lives — similar to laws already in place in Oregon and Vermont.
The bill would also give the green light for anyone approved to end their lives to do so within 48 hours of the request — rather than the 15 days currently required for Coloradans.
Campaigners have previously raised concerns over suicide tourism, warning doctors ‘hardly know’ the patients to whom they are prescribing it to.
Oregon is now seeing a record number of people ending their lives in the state, after it became America’s first suicide tourism destination in 2022
Among those using the measure to end their lives was Lynda Bluestein, 76, from Connecticut, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She died this year in Vermont after the state changed its laws to allow those from out-of-state to use its assisted dying provisions
Eight of the nine states that allow assisted dying are Democrat-led, as well as both states that allow people from other states to come to them to end their lives.
Oregon became the first ‘suicide tourism’ destination in the US in 2022.
Official figures show that since then at least three people have traveled to the state to end their lives.
But experts say this figure is likely a huge underestimate because the vast majority of assisted dying prescriptions do not record a person’s residency address.
At the same time, the number of people using assisted dying in Oregon has hit a record high — with 431 prescriptions for the measure written in 2022.
This was up 12 percent on the previous year and double the number from five years ago.
Of those who were prescriped assisted dying in 2022, a total of 278 followed through with the measure to end their lives.
The rest may not have either because they changed their minds or because they died before they could use the provision.
There is no data yet on the number of people traveling to Vermont to end their lives.
Among those traveling from other states to Vermont was Lynda Bluestein, a 76-year-old from Connecticut with a terminal cancer diagnosis — who lobbied Vermont to ease its out-of-state restrictions on assisted dying.
She traveled to Vermont to end her life this month, with her husband Paul describing his wife’s final moments as ‘comfortable and peaceful’.
He said her last words were: ‘I’m so happy I don’t have to do this [suffer] anymore.’
Colorado’s new law — dubbed SB 24-068 — was proposed by Democrat state senator Joann Ginal at the start of this year.
It has been referred to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which will start considering the move in late February.
The bill still has a long path to become law, needing to clear the committee and votes in the Senate before also passing votes in the House. It will also need to be signed into law by Democrat Governor Jared Polis.
Only about a third of beneficiaries said they were worried about a lack of ‘pain control.’ A worrying 17 patients said they were ending their lives because they were worried about medical bills piling up.
In total, there have been 203 reportable events in the state since they first legalized it in 2013, with 73 percent of the people who chose to die because they had cancer
Colorado first approved assisted dying in 2016 in a statewide public vote.
Under the current provision, someone must be from within the state and two physicians must agree an adult is mentally competent to make the decision to end their life and has six months to live.
They must also make the request twice at least 15 days apart before being prescribed the lethal cocktail of drugs.
If the new law is passed, Colorado could also become at least the third state to reduce the waiting time to 48 hours — after California also reduced the waiting time in 2022. Oregon doctors can also waive the 15-day waiting period if a patient is likely to die before this period ends.
But campaign groups are starting to raise concerns over making access to assisted dying provisions easier.
The executive director of the campaign group Oregon Right to Life, Lois Anderson, said last year doctors were increasingly writing prescriptions for patients they had only known for a few days.
‘The physicians providing these deadly prescriptions hardly know their patients and are often abandoning them in the last moments of their lives,’ they said.
‘They have increasingly become absent even when the lethal drugs are ingested. That’s not care. That’s churning people through the “Death with Dignity” machine.’
Anita Cameron, 57, said her mother was given just six months to live by doctors when she was diagnosed with a terminal lung disease. But the mother-of-four ignored doctors and lived another 12 years and ten months
The co-executive director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, Julie Reiskin, also suggested that speeding up the timeline could result in people deciding to die when they are despairing over a diagnosis.
Ms Reiskin, speaking to the Denver Post, revealed her own experience — saying that when she first became disabled she thought she would rather die than use a wheelchair.
But over time, she added, she has found life as fulfilling as ever. She said: ‘That just feels way too fast.’
In another case, a mother-of-four with a terminal lung disease revealed how she lived for nearly 12 more years after doctors said she would barely survive six months.
Alice Bozeman, now aged 72 years and from Colorado, had ignored the suggestions in 2009 saying she was ‘too ornery to die’. Ornery means stubborn, bad-tempered or combative, according to the Oxford English dictionary.
‘I’m just so thankful,’ her daughter Anita Cameron told DailyMail.com. ‘We wouldn’t have had 11 years and ten months more of my mom, to see her grandkids get married and have kids.’
The daughter worries America is now racing toward a Canadian-style euthanasia free-for-all situation where people with as little as hearing loss can opt to end their lives.
Supporters of assisted suicide schemes say, however, that they help some desperately sick people end their suffering.
Data shows most of the people who choose to end their lives are over 65 years old and suffering from cancer, heart disease or brain disease.
Another 18 states are considering legalizing assisted dying this year — including Tennessee, which could become the first Republican bastion to pass the measure.
