On Friday, pro-life advocates, disability rights groups and others working against a measure that would make Connecticut the third state to legalize assisted suicide were successful in stopping this bill for this legislative session.
Peter Wolfgang, President of Family Institute of Connecticut, emailed LifeNews with more details about the victory.
He said “defeating the Assisted Suicide bill was the highest legislative priority of the Family Institute of Connecticut Action in 2013. FIC Action and our allies accomplished exactly that.”
“In fact, in all the years I have been involved with FIC–as volunteer, public policy director and president–we have never defeated a bill as decisively as this one. This was, quite simply, some of the best work FIC Action has ever done,” Wolfgang added.
On Friday, he said Compassion and Choices, the pro-Assisted Suicide group, sent an email pleading for the Public Health Committee to at least allow an up or down vote on their bill. Because the panel took no vote on the bill, it died in committee and is dead for the rest of the session.
Why did the measure die without a vote?
“Because our allies conducted a spectacular press conference that included Prof. Stephen Mikochick, the national disability law expert that testified against Assisted Suicide on behalf of FIC Action,” Wolfgang said. “Because we had the best public hearing in the history of FIC Action. Because you, our faithful members, contacted your legislators. Because those legislators listened and were genuinely open to being educated on the dangers of Assisted Suicide.”
“Our opponents are claiming that the bill only failed because they ran out of time. Unfortunately for their talking points, pro-Assisted Suicide Sen. Ed Meyer has admitted the truth to the media: the bill failed because they did not have the votes,” he added. “Our opponents claim that the majority supports Assisted Suicide. If that were true, they could have at least voted the bill out of the first of several committees it had to go through before becoming law. But they could not even do that.”
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
“We must continue to be on our guard. Though it is unlikely, the Assisted Suicide bill could return as an amendment on another bill before the close of the legislative session on June 5th. Even if it does not, our opposition has vowed to bring it back next year,” the pro-life leader said.
Wolfgang said he expects the bill to return again next year in part because assisted suicide backers are getting funding from liberal billionaire George Soros.
