Opponents and advocates say the issue isn't red or blue--it's emotional and personal.
On Friday, a Montana bill that would have codified assisted suicide into state law died in a state House committee after gaining bipartisan support.
Two days before, the committee heard more than an hour of emotional testimony on the bill from members of the public. Rep. Tracy Sharp, a Republican, acknowledged that the bill raises questions about the sanctity of life.
“I’m anti-abortion,” he said ahead of a vote on the bill. “But I just can’t vote to deny all the people that we heard … something that I would want for myself.” Sharp said that voting no on the measure “would be too hypocritical. I would like to die with dignity.”
Assisted suicide in Montana has taken place in a legal gray area since 2009, when the state Supreme Court ruled that doctors can cite the consent of a patient as a defense to a charge of murder. Despite a longstanding Republican majority in the House and Senate, the topic has divided the state legislature for years. Montana has neither officially legalized the practice nor closed the court-created loophole. As legislators consider the issue again this year, lawmakers and lobbyists attribute the bipartisan support and opposition to assisted suicide to the personal nature and emotional complexity of the debate.
On Friday, Sharp joined the committee’s eight Democrats to support the legislation, which would have permitted doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients of sound mind who request them. The 11 other Republicans voted no before the committee moved to table the bill, effectively killing it for the session.
Meanwhile in the state Senate, another Republican lawmaker is waiting for the House to take up a bill his chamber passed last month that would close the loophole the state Supreme Court created in 2009.
“We all know that Montana has a real problem with suicide,” said Sen. Carl Glimm last month during a discussion on the Senate floor. His voice quavered as he spoke. “And I bet everybody in here has somebody who has touched your life in that way. We need to be consistent. … Suicide is not a good way out. We need to show Montana that this is our policy.”
According to the latest national suicide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Montana has the highest per capita suicide rate in the country.
“This is an issue that really cuts across party lines,” said Jessica Rodgers, coalitions director for the Patients Rights Action Fund. She testified against the pro–assisted suicide bill in the House during Wednesday’s hearing, noting that similar laws in other states have led to abuses that have harmed vulnerable people. “It’s not a red or a blue issue. It is a human issue,” she told WORLD.
In Wednesday’s hearing, supporters and opponents cited personal experiences as the motivation for their position. Many had cared for family members in their final days. Others expressed concern for the future medical experiences of an ill loved one.
“You may ask why I am bringing this bill, as it’s not a subject matter that a Republican legislator would typically support,” said Republican Rep. Julie Darling, who sponsored the bill. She tearfully described watching her sister battle breast cancer and said her sister had scheduled a day to die by assisted suicide but died from the cancer first. Darling argues that having some control over her death helped her sister in those final days.
“Medical aid in dying is not a partisan issue. It’s a freedom of choice,” she said during the hearing. Darling canceled an interview with WORLD, citing scheduling conflicts.
Derek Oestreicher, chief legal counsel for the Montana Family Foundation, testified against the bill on Wednesday. During his testimony, he emphasized that doctors should be healers, not killers, and that the state should not promote suicide as a solution to suffering.
While Oestreicher disagrees with Darling’s support for assisted suicide, he agrees that people’s personal experiences and feelings make it a difficult issue. “It really is an issue that transcends political ideology,” he said. “So it doesn’t necessarily matter if you’re Republican or Democrat on this issue, because when you think of end of life and whether or not you’re being compassionate, or whether or not you’ve had a loved one that’s gone through a difficult passing, a lot of those personal feelings and experiences are brought to that issue.”
It’s those personal feelings and experiences, Oestreicher said, that have likely hindered the Montana legislature from closing the loophole the state Supreme Court created for assisted suicide. Glimm has introduced a similar bill at every one of Montana’s biennial legislative sessions since 2019. In the four sessions before that, other lawmakers have presented similar bills. Four times since 2011, the Republican-sponsored legislation has passed one chamber but not the other, even though Republicans have held a majority each time.
“Sometimes even the most principled legislators seem a little confused on this issue,” said Oestreicher.
Rodgers with the Patients Rights Action Fund acknowledged that more Republicans than Democrats oppose assisted suicide legislation. But she has observed that not all Democrats are sold on assisted suicide. Bills to legalize it arise every year in legislatures across the country, but it’s been four years since the most recent state—New Mexico—legalized the practice.
“We’ve had bills come up in New York for 10 years, in Massachusetts, in Maryland, in Illinois, and we are not seeing these bills passing in deep blue states,” Rodgers said. “So if this really was a partisan issue that Democrats wanted and Republicans opposed, the map of legal states in the country would look very different.” Laws allowing assisted suicide are in effect in nine states and Washington, D.C.
Oestreicher said that watching the pro–assisted suicide bill in the Montana House has shown him and other lobbyists which Republican lawmakers are conflicted on the issue—and whom to focus on as the House soon begins to take up bills from the Senate.
“I think when people think of pro-life, they often think of the start of life, and they don’t always think about the end of life,” Oestreicher said. “If you’re going to be pro-life, it’s from conception until natural death.”