Members of the Connecticut legislature’s Public Health Committee:
The public hearing concerning SB 88 is over and soon it will be time for you to vote. This is your chance to do the right thing and vote in favor of the bill.
Why is that the right thing? Because it is what the majority (66%) of the people of Connecticut want and there’s good reason for that. Death is going to come to all of us and, with few exceptions, the end of life is not pretty.
Before I retired from medicine, I watched people die and I can tell you it’s not like television or movies. In real life, it is likely to be a long drawn out process filled with physical and emotional pain while you agonize over what your last days on this earth will be like and how you will be remembered by your family and friends.
It’s nearly as bad, or even worse, to sit at the bedside of someone you love — a spouse, parent or child – and feel helpless. Now is the time for you to put politics aside and stand on the side of compassion and humanity. Do it for me, for my wife who has late stage cancer, for your own family or for yourself. Do it for the all people in our state who look to you to provide them some measure of comfort and peace of mind, not turn your back on them.
For their sake, vote to pass SB 88.
Paul Bluestein, MD, lives in Bridgeport.