Editor:
The Montana Legislature is considering the question of physician assisted suicide. The Senate has rejected an Oregon style bill that would have legalized such a practice. The House has passed House Bill 505, which will end the confusion about assisted suicide in Montana by stating it is illegal. I am in favor of this bill and wish to correct misconceptions recently expressed in a community forum article published within the past two weeks in the Havre Daily News.
HB 505 seeks to clarify the relevant law, which has been misinterpreted as a result of the Montana Supreme Court Baxter decision of 2009. This decision did not legalize physician assisted suicide, contrary to claims made by authors of the comnmunity forum article. The court only stated that a patient’s consent, if given, may be used as a legal defense. Lawyers are scratching their heads about the meaning and the ramifications of this decision, which is why the Legislature should act to provide needed clarity. HB 505 only addresses the aiding or solicitation of suicide, including physician assisted suicide. It specifically does not include end of life palliative care in which a dying person receives medication to alleviate pain or any act to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment authorized by the Montana Rights of the Terminally Ill Act. Passage of HB 505 would leave these rights unchanged.
Please contact your Senator by calling 406-444-4800 and tell them to end the confusion. Please tell them to vote yes on HB 505.
Dr. Rick Blevins, Great Falls
Yeah, I remember you. You are the "specialist" Dr. Reich, of Havre, sent me to see in Great Falls, after he merely looked at my throat for 5 seconds. After all your tests failed to diagnose my problem, you told me you would have to operate on me. You wanted to cut me open and see what was the matter. I burned rubber out of your parking lot, and never came back after I heard that.
A few weeks later I looked up my symptoms on the internet and suspected I might have an ulcer. All it took to prove it was one simple blood test; the one test that you, and Hall, and Reich, failed to give me, for some reason. It was the H-pylorie test for bacteria in the stomach, if I remember right.
Then I had to go back to "Hollywood" Hall, my original doctor, to get him to prescribe me 2 weeks worth of anti-biotics. After that the ulcer was gone. For good. So, thanks for nothing Blevins! But YOU still got paid, didn't you, Dr. All three of you doctors did.
What was it you wanted us to tell our Senator now, Dr? You want a YES vote on HB 505, do you? You want us to give up our right to die and give it to you, and your kind? Yeaaah, you bet! Whatever you say Doc. You're the doctor, right?