Poll: Two-thirds of Mass. residents support medical aid in dying

Two-thirds of Massachusetts adults support giving certain terminally ill patients the legal option to end their lives with a doctor's prescription, according to a poll that gauged residents on a controversial policy Massachusetts voters rejected in 2012.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB poll, released Tuesday morning, found that 44% of Bay Staters strongly support so-called physician-assisted death while another 23% said they somewhat support the idea. Eleven percent were somewhat or strongly opposed and 22% said they neither support nor oppose it.

The issue of physician-assisted death has lingered around Beacon Hill for years, with advocates claiming steps of progress as the Massachusetts Medical Society voted to drop its longstanding opposition and instead adopt a position of neutral engagement and then as aid-in-dying legislation got a favorable report from the Public Health Committee after at least five straight sessions of being sent to study.

Massachusetts voters spoke directly to the issue in 2012 when they rejected a ballot question with 51% opposed and 49% in favor — a margin of 67,891 votes.

"Now 12 years later, close to seven in 10 residents are in favor of providing terminally-ill patients with only a few months to live to make the decision to terminate their life," Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll, said. "With the State Legislature currently contemplating legislation that would provide this right to residents of the Bay State, it may only be a matter of time before Massachusetts becomes the 11th state to legalize physician-assisted death."

Legislation (S 1331/H 2246) from Sen. Jo Comerford and Rep. Jim O'Day would allow mentally-sound adults with a prognosis of six months or less left to live to "voluntarily make an oral request for medical aid in dying and a prescription for medication that the patient can choose to self-administer to bring about a peaceful death."

Comerford's bill has cleared the Public Health Committee and the Health Care Financing Committee and is pending before the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Seventeen senators, close to a majority in that branch, are listed as co-sponsors.

Bill supporters plan to gather at the State House on Wednesday as End of Life Options Coalition holds a lobby day to press for passage of the Comerford/O'Day bill. Sen. Su Moran, Reps. Jim O'Day, Ted Philips and Simon Cataldo, advocate Sir Porte, caregivers Janet Simons-Folger and Dan Diaz are scheduled to speak in Nurses Hall at 11 a.m.

Opponents contend that authorizing the policy will expose patients to coercion and abuse.  Disability advocacy groups previously pointed to Oregon, which legalized doctor-prescribed fatal doses in 1997, where it has been reported that some insurance companies have told patients that their recommended treatment is not covered by their insurance, though assisted death is.

"With assisted suicide, it instantly becomes the cheapest treatment," John Kelly, New England regional director for the advocacy group Not Dead Yet, said at an advocacy day in 2017.