Maine Physician-Assisted Death Initiative (2020)

Maine Physician-Assisted Death Initiative
Election date November 3, 2020
Topic Assisted death
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens
List of Maine measuresQuestion 1 (March)Question 1 (July)Question 2 (July)Submit

The Maine Physician-Assisted Death Initiative was not on the ballot in Maine as an indirect initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.

The ballot initiative would have legalized physician-assisted death, also known as medical aid-in-dying, for persons who are at least 18 years old and, based on the judgment of two physicians, suffering from a terminal disease with a prognosis of death within six months.

Text of measure

Petition summary

The summary of the initiative that was included on the petition form is as follows:

This initiated bill enacts the Maine Death with Dignity Act authorizing a person who is 18 years of age or older, who meets certain qualifications and who has been determined by the person's attending physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, as defined in the Act, to make a request for medication prescribed for the purpose of ending the person's life. The initiated bill establishes the procedures for making these requests, including 2 waiting periods and one written and 2 oral requests and requires a 2nd opinion by a consulting physician. The initiated bill requires specified information to be documented in the person's medical record, including all oral and written requests for a medication to hasten death. The initiated bill requires the attending and consulting physicians to assess the patient for depression or other mental health condition that impairs judgment. If the attending or consulting physician, in the physician's professional opinion, believes such a condition exists, the patient must be evaluated and treated by a state-licensed psychiatrist, psychologist, clinical social worker or clinical professional counselor. Medication to end a patient's life in a humane and dignified manner may not be prescribed until the person performing the counseling determines that the patient is not suffering from a psychiatric or psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment. The initiated bill prohibits a provision in a contract, will or other agreement from being conditioned upon, or affected by, a person's making or rescinding a request for medication under the Act. The initiated bill prohibits the sale, procurement or issuance of any life, health or accident insurance or annuity policy or the rate charged for any life, health or accident insurance or annuity policy from being conditioned upon or affected by the making or rescinding of such a request. The initiated bill authorizes a health care provider to prohibit its employees, independent contractors or other persons or entities, including other health care providers, from participating in activities under the Act while on premises owned by or under the management or direct control of that prohibiting health care provider or while acting within the course and scope of any employment by, or contract with, the prohibiting health care provider. The initiated bill makes it a Class A crime to knowingly alter or forge a request for medication to end a person's life without that person's authorization or to conceal or destroy a withdrawal or rescission of a request for medication, if it is done with the intent or effect of causing the person's death. The initiated bill makes it a Class A crime to knowingly coerce or exert undue influence on a person to request medication for the purpose of ending that person's life or to destroy a withdrawal or rescission of a request. The initiated bill provides that the Act does not authorize ending a patient's life by lethal injection, mercy killing or active euthanasia and provides that action taken in accordance with the Act does not constitute, among other things, suicide or homicide. The initiated bill requires health care providers to submit specified information to the Department of Health and Human Services upon their writing a prescription for or dispensing medication under the Act and after the death of the qualified patient. The initiated bill requires the department to generate and make available to the public an annual statistical report of information collected regarding compliance with the Act. The initiated bill requires a copy of the report to be submitted to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over health matters annually by March 1st.

Full text

The full text of the measure is available here.

Support

Maine Death with Dignity led the campaign in support of the ballot initiative. Valerie Lovelace, chairperson of Maine Death with Dignity, said the ballot initiative was modeled after Oregon's physician-assisted death law.

Arguments

• Valerie Lovelace, chairperson of Maine Death with Dignity, said, "Last year [2017] and in 2015, Senator Katz’s Death with Dignity Act made its way through our legislature only to be hampered by those who wish to tell Mainers how they die. It’s time Maine voters had their say and for dying Mainers to have this end-of-life option. This law is full of safeguards modeled after the successful implementation of the law in other states."

Opposition

Arguments

• Mike Reynolds, a member of the group Not Dead Yet, said, "This is not “death with dignity” – it’s a desperate effort to further a dangerous law and give it mainstream credibility, with no regard for the harm it causes, and it even gives full legal immunity to any medical personnel or other person who assists in the suicide. The only real protections in the law are for people other than the patient, foreclosing any realistic potential for investigation of foul play."

Background

Physician-assisted death in the United States

As of 2020, physician-assisted death was legal in nine states and Washington, D.C.

Vermont (2013), California (2015), Washington, D.C. (2016), Hawaii (2018), Maine (2019), and New Jersey (2019) legalized physician-assisted death through the state legislative process. Oregon (1994), Washington (2008), and Colorado (2016) legalized physician-assisted death through the ballot initiative process. In Montana (2009), the state supreme court ruled that physician-assisted death was de facto legal in the state.

Physician-assisted death ballot measures

The first state to vote on a physician-assisted death ballot measure was Washington in 1991. Between 1991 and 2019, there were eight ballot measures addressing physician-assisted death in seven states.

Voters rejected Washington Initiative 119 in 1991, which would have legalized assisted death in cases of terminal conditions. Californians defeated a similar initiative, Proposition 161, in 1992. Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted death in 1994, when voters passed Measure 16. The Oregon State Legislature asked voters to repeal the measure via Measure 51 three years later, but voters rejected the legislature's proposal.

Voters in Michigan rejected an assisted death ballot measure, Michigan Proposal B, in 1998. Voters in Maine rejected a ballot initiative, Maine Question 1, in 2000. Voters in Massachusetts also rejected a ballot initiative, Massachusetts Question 2, in 2012.

Following the defeat of a ballot initiative in 1991, voters in Washington again addressed the issue in 2008, with a vote on Initiative 1000. Voters approved Initiative 1000. In 2016, voters in Colorado approved Proposition 106, a physician-assisted death initiative.

The following table illustrates the outcome of each physician-assisted death ballot initiative:

State	Initiative	Year	Percent “Yes”	Percent “No”	Status
Washington	Initiative 119	1991	46.40%	53.60%	d
California	Proposition 161	1992	45.87%	54.13%	d
Oregon	Measure 16	1994	51.31%	48.69%	a
Michigan	Proposal B	1998	28.88%	71.12%	d
Maine	Question 1	2000	48.67%	51.33%	d
Washington	Initiative 1000	2008	57.82%	42.18%	a
Massachusetts	Question 2	2012	48.87%	51.13%	d
Colorado	Proposition 106	2016	64.87%	35.13%	a
Average			49.09%	50.91%

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Maine

Process in Maine

In Maine, the number of signatures required to qualify an indirect initiated state statute for the ballot is equal to 10 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. Petitions can be circulated for up to 18 months, but signatures must be no more than one year old to be valid. Signatures must be filed with the secretary by the 50th day of the first regular legislative session or the 25th day of the second regular session. Maine's initiative process is indirect, which means sufficient initiative petitions first go to the legislature and only go to the ballot if the legislature rejects or does not act on the initiative.

The requirements to get an initiated state statute certified for the 2020 ballot:

• Signatures: 63,067 valid signatures were required.
• Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was February 3, 2020.

Each petition signature is certified by the local registrar of voters. The signatures are then submitted to the secretary of state. If enough signatures are verified, the initiatives are sent to the legislature. If the legislature approves the initiative, it becomes law. If the legislature does not act on the initiative or rejects it, the initiative goes on the ballot. The legislature may submit "any amended form, substitute, or recommendation" to the people alongside the initiative; this alternative is treated as a competing measure.

Stages of this initiative

On May 7, 2018, the initiative petition was approved for signature gathering. On November 1, 2018, the Portland Press Herald reported that petitioners had collected about 9,000 signatures. Valerie Lovelace, chairperson of Maine Death with Dignity, said petitioners planned to collect signatures outside of polling places on November 6, 2018. Lovelace announced that the campaign would not seek to file signatures for the 2019 ballot, which had a deadline of January 24, 2019, and instead aimed to get the initiative on the ballot for the presidential election on November 3, 2020. The ballot initiative was allowed to circulate until November 7, 2019.

On June 12, 2019, the group Maine Death with Dignity announced that signatures would not be filed for the ballot initiative. The statement said, "A parallel effort Maine Death with Dignity initiated in May 2018 gathered over 72,000 valid signatures and would have taken the question to ballot in 2020 had LD 1313 failed." Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed Legislative Document 1313 (LD 1313) into law on June 12. The Maine House of Representatives passed LD 1313 in a vote of 73-72. The Maine State Senate passed LD 1313 in a vote of 19-16.

See also

2020 measures

• 2020 ballot measures
• Assisted death on the ballot

Maine

• Maine ballot measures
• Maine ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls