At long last, Delaware enacts "death with dignity" law to ease human suffering
The bill is the result of a decade-long push from now-retired lawmaker Paul S. Baumbach
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After more than a decade of work, a recently retired openly humanist member of the Delaware State House got to see his monumental “death with dignity” bill become law despite the former Democratic governor killing it at the last second.
I first wrote about this attempt last year. The bill in question, HB 140, would have allowed terminally ill people to end life on their own terms, subject to approval from medical professionals. It was sponsored by State Rep. Paul S. Baumbach of Newark, a Democrat who served in office since 2012 and retired last year. Baumbach was a self-described “Unitarian Universalist humanist,” according to his 2022 endorsement from the Center for Freethought Equality.
This kind of bill tends to divide people between those with compassion… and those who make excuses (usually religious ones) for why people should be forced to prolong their suffering. The Delaware bill would have only applied to people who have less than six months to life, are capable of making an informed decision, and are acting voluntarily. Two doctors would also have to sign off on all of that.
Baumbach said the bill includes a number of safeguards, including ensuring patients are self-administering the medication, moral objection opt-outs for medical providers, waiting periods and mandatory mental health evaluations.
Baumbach made it clear that no medical professional who opposes this procedure would have to participate in it, while putting those sensible guardrails in place so that patients wouldn’t be coerced into making a permanent decision against their will.
In order to go through with it, assuming all the other boxes were checked, the patient would have to make two oral requests for the lethal medicine, then a written request, then get that written request signed by two witnesses, and then wait at least 48 hours before the attending physician can prescribe the drugs. In other words, there were lots of hurdles along the way. This was meant to be a last resort for patients with no other options available to them, not a first resort for the desperate.
It’s the humane approach for people whose only path forward involves unimaginable suffering.
Right now, only 10 states have similar end-of-life laws, yet a recent Gallup poll found that a convincing majority of Americans support these interventions regardless of the terminology used to describe them:
Plenty of religious conservatives oppose it, thought. They argue that taking your own life, no matter the reason, is an affront to God and that you must let nature run its course—even when you’re terminally ill, in constant pain, and have no hope for recovery. They think the God who inflicted that pain upon you should be allowed to torture you as long as He wants. The Diocese of Wilmington, on the side of prolonging the suffering, issued a statement at the time saying “there is no justification to take an innocent life.”
That position could not be more cruel.
We’re not talking about people who are having fits of depression or who want to end their lives on a whim. We’re talking about patients whose lives aren’t going to get any better. There’s no cure for what ails them. Doctors can attest to that. Those patients should have the right to end life on their own terms, having said their goodbyes, without anyone getting punished for it.
Still, the bill’s path to becoming a law was never going to be a simple one. Baumbach had been proposing this legislation since 2015 but it never even came up for a floor vote until last year.
It passed in the House on a 21-16 vote (the bare minimum for passage given four absences), but in June of 2024, the bill hit a logjam in the Senate. Every Republican and three Democrats voted against it, resulting in a 9-9 tie. Even one of the Democrats who co-sponsored the bill “tearfully declined” to vote on it. But because of a strategic move, the bill was allowed to be reconsidered the following week… and that’s when it finally passed on an 11-10 vote. (The no votes came from every Republican and four Democrats, but there were enough Democrats to pass it.)
The bill only awaited the signature of Democratic Gov. John Carney.
And then Carney, a Catholic, vetoed it.
I still don’t believe a firm consensus has been reached on what is a very difficult issue—in Delaware or nationally. Last year, the American Medical Association reaffirmed its view that physician-assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.” And although I understand not everyone shares my views, I am fundamentally and morally opposed to state law enabling someone, even under tragic and painful circumstances, to take their own life.
As I have shared consistently, I am simply not comfortable letting this piece of legislation become law.
Baumbach couldn’t believe it and he made his views explicitly clear:
“I think he’s ill-informed and ill-advised, and I think he did a major decision that is going to be harming people who least deserve it, those who are dying,” he said. “I think it’s heartless. It’s unfortunately not a surprise. We’ve seen the governor disregard the vast majority of Delawareans multiple times, but I thought there was more humanity in him, and I was wrong.”
But here’s the good news: After Carney left office (and became the mayor of Wilmington) and Baumbach retired, his colleagues took the baton and refiled his bill the next time around.
This time, HB 140 was sponsored by State Rep. Eric Morrison (an open atheist!) and it saw a similar trajectory as its predecessor. It passed in the House 21-17 (with three absences), then it passed in the Senate 11-8 (with two absences)—no Republicans voted in favor of it in either chamber—and it was now up to the new governor, Matt Meyer, to sign it.
Would he do it?
This time, the answer was yes.
“The Ron Silverio/Heather Block End of Life Options Law” has now passed, named in honor of two people who died before those options were available to them.
"This signing today is about relieving suffering and giving families the comfort of knowing that their loved one was able to pass on their own terms without unnecessary pain and surrounded by the people they love the most," Gov. Meyer said. "For many of you — many more than me — this has been a long journey. For nearly a decade this idea has been debated and delayed, but always defended by those of you who believed deeply that it was the right thing to do, and it's because of you that we're here today and because of that courage I will be signing that bill."
A compassionate governor, surrounded by compassionate Democrats, got it done.
Right-wing groups are predictably furious because helping people goes against everything they stand for. One anti-abortion organization said, with Opposite Day logic, that the bill offers “no compassion, no hope, and no help for vulnerable members of our society.” Apparently forcing them to be tortured in their own bodies is the preferred outcome.
On the other hand, Compassion & Choices, a group that’s been advocating for this legislation, celebrated the signing:
“This momentous day is the culmination of over 10 years of tireless work in Delaware by Compassion & Choices Action Network and the dynamic coalition of supporters we built, including volunteers, terminally ill advocates, medical professionals, legislative champions, and supporters from all walks of life,” said Tim Appleton, Delaware senior campaign director for Compassion & Choices Action Network, who has worked on the campaign since the beginning. “We could not have done it without the steadfast leadership of Rep. Eric Morrison, former Rep. Paul Baumbach for many years before, Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend, and the unwavering advocacy of terminally ill Delawareans, some of whom gave their last days advocating for this compassionate end-of-life care option.”
Ultimately, this happened because of a years-long campaign by a secular politician who spent his career trying to get this done. His advocacy generated enough support for the bill that, even after he left office, his momentum carried it past the finish line.
Fewer people will suffer because Democrats in Delaware understood that prolonging their suffering was unnecessarily cruel.
To head off the inevitable fuckwits who don't understand the difference-
Suicide as a rational choice in order to end a life which has become nothing but suffering due to terminal illness, and suicide as a result of losing the battle with mental illness, 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. I say this as someone who has been haunted by unwelcome urges towards the latter for well over two decades, and who nevertheless wishes that the former were an option available to everyone who needs it. Life is 𝘯𝘰𝘵 always worth living. Life is 𝘯𝘰𝘵 sacred. People should be able to end it on their own terms when confronted with circumstances which otherwise would see the end of theirs become a fucking horror show- and they should not have that horror show imposed on them by well-meaning but ignorant fuckwits who don't understand the difference between the 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 to die with dignity and the loss of a battle with intrusive suicidal thoughts.
It. Is. Not. The. Same. Thing.
Get that through your fucking heads.
That is all.
If voluntarily putting an end to intolerable pain and suffering is an affront to God, then that God is someone I would not worship even if it could be demonstrated that he/she/it exists. I have struggled most of my life to see what actual good religion contributes to the world.