Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Delaware Talking Points (2025)

By Margaret K. Dore, Esq., MBA

“Aid in Dying” has been a euphemism for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia since at least 1992.

Per the American Medical Association, "physician-assisted suicide" occurs when a doctor facilitates a patient’s death by providing the means or information to enable a patient to perform the life-ending act. "Euthanasia" is the administration of a lethal agent by another person to kill a patient. 

Persons assisting a suicide or euthanasia can have a personal agenda. Reported motives include: the “thrill” of getting other people to kill themselves; and wanting to see someone die.

This year's proposed Act, HB 140, has a formal application process to obtain a lethal dose for the purpose of killing other people. Once a lethal dose is issued by a pharmacy or other legal distributor, there is no required oversight. No medical person or even an official witness is required to be present at the death.

Current Delaware law prevents a person who kills another person, i.e., commits homicide, from inheriting from a person that he or she killed. The rationale is that a criminal should not be allowed to benefit from his or her crime.

Per the proposed Act, however, a person who intentionally kills another person is allowed to inherit from the person he or she killed. This is because deaths occurring pursuant to the proposed Act will be treated as natural, as if the person who died, had died from natural causes as opposed to an intentional lethal overdose." 

In the event of the proposed Act’s passage, Delaware residents with money, meaning the middle class and above, will be rendered sitting ducks to their heirs. Passage of the Act will create a perfect crime.

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