September 26, 2016 11:45 AM UTC

"End of Life Options" Campaign Goes On The Air

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

A press release from the Yes on Colorado End-of-Life Options Campaign (Proposition 106) announces their first TV spot:

The Yes on Colorado End-of-Life Options campaign today will start airing its first television ad to help educate Colorado voters about Proposition 106. The measure will allow terminally ill, mentally capable adults who are Colorado residents access to medication that would allow them to shorten the dying process if suffering becomes unbearable.

Introducing the ad, Dan Diaz said, “As you may know, Brittany and I went to the extraordinary lengths of leaving our home in California and moved to Oregon in order for Brittany to have the option of a gentle passing afforded by medical aid in dying. We were fortunate to have the resources to relocate in order to ensure Brittany could make that personal decision. But many do not have the ability, financially or personally, to move to another state – nor should they have to do so. Coloradans deserve better.”

“We are so grateful to Dan Diaz and his willingness to share Brittany’s story with Colorado voters,” said Julie Selsberg, co-petitioner of the measure. “In Colorado we know that personal, intimate health care decisions are ours and ours alone – and that government should not dictate our choices or force us to leave our homes to go to a state where medical aid in dying is an option.”

Selsberg was at her father’s side as he slowly died from Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and helped him write an open letter to Colorado lawmakers asking them to authorize medical aid in dying.

Colorado would become the 6th state to authorize medical aid in dying. Research shows that an overwhelming majority of Coloradans believes there should be aid in dying for those who want it. The Colorado Medical Society recently dropped its opposition to the law.

At this point, Proposition 106 appears to have the strongest support of any of the statewide ballot measures up for a vote this year–polling at 70% in a recent Colorado Mesa University survey. What we’ve heard about the campaign for this measure in other states is that the religious opponents of medical aid in dying–think the Catholic Church and others we usually hear from in the abortion debate–tend to “ambush” the debate very late in the election season with emotionally-charged and even openly religious counterarguments.

Whether that works in an avowedly secular place like Colorado as opposed to, say, heavily Catholic Massachusetts, where a similar measure narrowly failed in 2012, is a question to be answered by our voters in November. But for today, proponents have the advantage, and this ad will help them.