- Kathryn Tucker
Hawaii is fourth state where
doctors can aid the dying
Experts on Hawaii law, medicine, elder care, legislative and end-of-life issues have concluded that Hawaii physicians may already provide aid in dying subject to professional best-practice standards. Compassion & Choices and the Hawaii Death with Dignity Society, a local organization with similar goals, announced those findings at a panel discussion on aid in dying on Oct. 5 at the State Capitol in Honolulu.
“We expect Hawaii residents will soon have the same broad range of end-of-life choices enjoyed by the people in Montana, Oregon and Washington,” said Kathryn Tucker, director of legal affairs for Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit organization working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life.
“Hawaii law, through a number of statutory enactments and a provision in a 1909 law unique to Hawaii, already empowers terminally-ill patients with significant freedom to determine their course of medical care at the end of life and affords protection to physicians who provide care,” Tucker said.
“Hawaii’s existing law already empowers patients to make autonomous decisions regarding their end-of-life care and treatment for pain. Further, Hawaii does not have a criminal prohibition against aid in dying,” she said. “Hawaii law also contains a unique provision that gives physicians broad discretion when treating terminally-ill patients.”
“Most medical care is governed by professional scope of practice standards,” said panelist Robert “Nate” Nathanson, M.D., a founder of Hospice Hawaii. “These standards accept other practices that may advance the time of death, such as withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, and palliative sedation.”
