As a policy attorney newly engaged in the fight against assisted suicide, one thing has become clear. When it comes to fighting for dignity in life’s final stages, opposition to assisted suicide has been stuck in a reactive loop. The pattern is predictable. Proponents of assisted suicide introduce a bill, and its opponents rush to the statehouse to testify against it.
But as the global landscape shifts—from the alarming expansion of euthanasia in Canada to the erosion of oversight in Oregon—it’s apparent that waiting for a bill to be filed is a losing strategy. To truly protect the vulnerable, we must build the legal and cultural fortress before the siege begins.
The lesson from the frontlines is simple: the best defense is a proactive offense.
Living in Connecticut for nearly a decade, I witnessed a formative, proactive strategy by opponents of assisted suicide who were unwilling to wait for the fight to come to them. Lobbying efforts led to the integration of specific disability protections into the state’s suicide prevention efforts via the Connecticut Suicide Advisory Board. The Board accurately defined the prevention of suicide as a universal goal that includes protection for high-risk individuals with terminal illnesses or disabilities.
Connecticut began to view requests for assisted dying not as a distinct medical right but as a potential symptom of inadequate social support or discrimination against the elderly, disabled and terminally ill. This effectively created a policy conflict for future assisted suicide bills. By making the issue a matter of civil rights, advocates ensure the state’s primary obligation remains providing resources for living with dignity, not the means for dying.
State lawmakers also clarified the definitions of palliative care and hospice through the Palliative Care Advisory Council. By ensuring that these services are robustly funded and legally distinct from any practices that hasten death, the state established a healthcare infrastructure that prioritizes comfort and support.
Since then, efforts to legalize assisted suicide in Connecticut have failed—even though nearby states like New York and Illinois recently legalized assisted suicide—because of Connecticut’s strategy of proactively establishing policies that emphasize life-affirming care.
By establishing a legislative framework that prioritizes suicide prevention and palliative care today, we can make assisted suicide unthinkable tomorrow.
While Connecticut served as a leading example of proactive policy, Slovenia focused on a proactive narrative. During a national referendum, opponents of assisted suicide took their own winning message to the people first, declaring assisted suicide as a cheap substitute for genuine health care reform.
Those against assisted suicide in Slovenia pointed to the failures of their elected officials. While every election cycle promised better care, the only "innovation" being delivered was a lethal prescription—ensuring that the vulnerable would no longer be a financial burden on the system.
Highlighting the chilling financial incentive for the state to encourage the elderly and disabled to "opt out" of pension and social care reform was a winning narrative. Framing assisted suicide as the real and incredible betrayal that, after a lifetime of paying into the system, led to a major turning point where Slovenian voters rejected a law to legalize assisted suicide in a national referendum.
These proactive policies and narrative-driven tactics are what we must take to the frontlines of the true fight for dignity at the end of life in every state across our country. Advocates for life cannot afford to let the opposition act first.
If the first time a community hears about assisted suicide is through a proponent campaign, the battle is already halfway lost.
We must urge elected officials to introduce protective measures now. This includes integrating terminal illness into suicide prevention mandates, ensuring that "high-risk" populations receive suicide intervention rather than lethal prescriptions, legally codifying the distinction between life-affirming hospice care and death-hastening procedures and exposing the economic pressure that assisted suicide places on the marginalized.
By taking the offensive, we do more than just defeat a bill; we affirm a culture where every citizen, regardless of age or ability, is worth the effort of prevention and the cost of care.
Emily Hoegler serves as Policy Counsel at Americans United for Life.
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