Capitol Conversation: End of Life Bill’s Failure

A push in Colorado to allow terminally ill patients to take medication to end their own lives has failed for the second straight year at the legislature. Bente Birkeland talks to statehouse reporters about the controversial issue as part of our capitol conversation series.

Capitol Conversation: End of Life Bill’s Failure kgnu

Here are highlights from Bente Birkeland’s interview with statehouse reporters about the controversial issue as part of our capitol conversation series.

On the Bill Being Pulled by the Sponsors:

Charles Ashby-Grand Junction Daily Sentinel:

“They didn’t want any changes to the bill. They’ve been working on this for the last two years and feel like they’ve written a perfect measure that has plenty of safeguards yet still dignifies the people who want to do this, but they were going to be faced with all these different amendments to win some votes.”

Joey Bunch- Denver Post:

“There was a lot of passion on both sides and to just pull the rug out from under it I think was a failure of the system. You know the first lesson of politics is math, and I would have to give the legislators who worked on this a D for not knowing where their votes were.”

On What’s Next:

Joey Bunch- Denver Post:

“We’re going to see some ballot measures come out of this. When Rep. [Lois] Court (D-Denver) pulled the measure she told the legislators they were going to pay a price for this, so now we’re going to go to the ballot and legislators are going to be on record even though they tried not to be.”

Charles Ashby-Grand Junction Daily Sentinel:

“This bill is modeled after what they’ve done in Oregon for what 19 years now. And they say it’s not had any problems. Some of the opponents say there have been problems with it. But they want a tried, tested, true, ballot proposal that is going to work.”