Bill Would Charge Doctors with Homicide for Providing Patients with Peaceful Death Option 

The Montana Senate today passed SB 136 in a 29-20 vote in its third reading.  The bill would overturn the landmark 2009 Baxter v. Montana ruling by subjecting physicians who provide qualifying adults with the option of medical aid in dying to homicide charges. The bill next goes to the Montana House of Representatives for consideration.

“We are appalled at the 29 senators who voted to move forward this draconian bill today, which would rob terminally ill Montanans of the compassionate and gentle end-of-life care option they’ve had access to for 15 years,” said Callie Riley, Regional Advocacy Director for Compassion & Choices Action Network. “We will continue to defend Montanans against the repeated attempts of a few misguided, persistent legislators to strip their constituents of their bodily autonomy, especially at the end of life.” 

The Senate’s vote disregards the will of over 80% of voters who support the right to medical aid in dying for qualifying Montanans with terminal illnesses, and the staggering near 90% of voters who oppose the criminalization of physicians who prescribe the compassionate end-of-life care option. 

In a poignant moment during the bill’s second reading Thursday, Sen. Kerr-Carpenter reminded her colleagues of the impact that overturning the Baxter ruling would have on terminally ill Montanans. “We can either offer them a peaceful, structured way to end, surrounded by their loved ones, with the ability to say goodbye. Or, we can leave them suffering in pain, without a way out.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee Monday voted 7-2 to advance the bill to the Senate floor, despite emotional testimony from opponents of the Physician Imprisonment Act in a hearing on Jan. 30, including doctors, hospice workers, people living with terminal illness, and family members of those who have died with and without medical aid in dying.

Pamela Brown, a Manhattan hospice and palliative care nurse who was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, pleaded with the committee to reject the bill. “All I know is that I want the chance to guide my death as I see fit. Please don’t take that away from me. Please uphold our current freedom,” Brown testified. 

Medical aid in dying has been authorized in Montana since 2009, as a result of the Montana Supreme Court ruling in a lawsuit, Baxter v. Montana, filed by Compassion & Choices on behalf of a terminally ill truck driver and Marine Veteran, Bob Baxter, of Billings. 

Sadly, Baxter died the very day the judges ruled in his favor and was unconscious when the phone call came to notify him of the court’s decision. Ironically, eight years later, his 36-year-old grandson, TJ Mutchler, was able to utilize medical aid in dying to peacefully end his suffering from terminal metastatic pancreatic cancer in 2017.

Medical aid in dying is authorized in 9 other states and Washington, D.C., representing more than one out of five U.S. residents (22%). There are no documented cases of abuse or coercion involving medical aid in dying since Oregon became the first state to implement the medical practice over 25 years ago in 1997.

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