Showing posts with label Compassion and Choices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Compassion and Choices. Show all posts

Monday, December 25, 2023

Good News Worth Remembering

By Margaret Dore, Esq.

In 2010, Kathryn Tucker, Director of Legal Affairs for Compassion & Choices, published an article in the Idaho Bar Association magazine, The Advocate. The article referred to assisted suicide and euthanasia as “aid in dying,” which Tucker claimed was legal in Idaho.  

The reaction to Tucker's claim was swift and brutal. In the next issue of The Advocate, there were nine letters against her. The writers included a former Chief Justice of the Idaho Supreme Court, Robert E. Bakes, who characterized her article as a “gross misunderstanding of Idaho law.” Another writer termed the article "malarkey."

Monday, July 4, 2011

Idaho Strengthens Law Against Assisted-Suicide

Butch Otto

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA
Updated 07/26/19

On April 5, 2011, Idaho Governor Butch Otto signed Senate Bill 1070 into law.[1] The bill explicitly provided that causing or aiding a suicide is a felony.[2]  

The bill supplemented existing Idaho law, which already imposed civil and criminal liability on doctors and others who cause or aid a suicide.[3] The bill's "Statement of Purpose" said: "This legislation will supplement existing common law and statutory law by confirming that it is illegal to cause or assist in the suicide of another."[4]

The bill was introduced in response to efforts by Compassion & Choices to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Idaho. The issue came to a head after that organization's legal director, Kathryn Tucker, wrote articles claiming that the practice, which she called "aid in dying," was already legal in Idaho. Compassion & Choices was formerly known as the Hemlock Society.[5]