Gov. Dannel P. Malloy expressed his strongest doubts to date about pending legislation that would allow physicians under certain circumstances to prescribe, but not administer, lethal drugs to the terminally ill.
“I don’t think in society we should be viewed as encouraging suicide,” Malloy told reporters Friday. “I would have to understand what the safeguards are with respect to that. A lot of what I’ll say and do in the future about that issue is dependent on the language I’ve been presented.”
Malloy said he is fully supportive of a separate bill that would create a pilot program making it easier for dying patients to decline treatment.
“I then become a little uneasy when it comes to saying that as a matter of state policy, that we’re going to take proactive actions to end” life, Malloy said. “There’s a difference, and there’s a distinction.”