Out-of-state residents will continue to be prohibited from receiving medical aid in dying in Colorado after a bill aimed at loosening the regulations for terminally ill people seeking to end their lives was pared back Thursday evening.
Senate Bill 68 was also changed to shrink the waiting period for people seeking medical aid in dying to seven days from 15, with the possibility to eliminate the waiting period for people who may not have 48 hours to live.
The original version of the bill would have reduced the waiting period for all eligible patients to 48 hours.
The bill, which would also let advanced practice registered nurses, in addition to doctors, prescribe aid-in-dying medication, advanced out of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on a 7-1 vote. It now heads to the full Senate for debate.
The measure comes eight years after Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 106, which legalized aid in dying in the state for terminally ill adults given less than six months to live and who get the approval of two doctors. Proponents of the bill say it would remove barriers that the ballot measure unintentionally put in place.
Sen. Joann Ginal, a Fort Collins Democrat and the lead sponsor of the legislation, said she offered the amendments to Senate Bill 68 to move some of the groups opposed to the measure to neutral.
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Ginal, during the committee hearing, called the amendments a “reasonable compromise.”
Colorado is among just 10 states that currently allow medical aid in dying. Washington, D.C., does, too.
Oregon was the first to drop its residency requirement, in 2022. Vermont followed in May.
Most states where medical aid in dying is legal have a waiting period of at least 15 days between when someone asks a medical professional to sign off on the end-of-life option and when they can get the medication.
But California lowered its waiting period to 48 hours from 15 days in 2022. New Mexico, whose law went into effect in 2021, also has a 48-hour waiting period between when an aid-in-dying prescription is written and when it is filled.
More than 1,090 patients were prescribed life-ending medication between 2017, when Colorado’s medical-aid-in-dying law went into effect, and 2022, according to data gathered by state health officials. Of those, 838 picked up the medication.
It’s unknown how many used the medication to end their lives.
The majority of those who received the prescriptions were suffering from terminal cancer. Neurological diseases were second.
Over the six-year period, aid-in-dying prescriptions were provided by 219 Colorado doctors.