Andrew Powell
Terminally ill Floridians could be given additional options to end their lives after a new measure was filed Friday.
The bill (HB 471) was filed by Boynton Beach Democrat Rep. Joe Casello and would be titled the “Florida End-of-Life Option Act” which would give terminally ill patients autonomy over their end-of-life choices.
It emphasizes the fundamental right of self-determination for adults with terminal illnesses who are still fully mentally capable of making an informed, voluntary decision. Patients must be over the age of 18, Florida residents, and diagnosed with a terminal illness that would end their life within six months.
To be eligible, patients would have to submit two oral requests and one written request — which would include a non-relative witness signature — for medication to end their life. The bill would further allow for a waiting period, and the patient would be able to rescind their request at any time.
Attending qualified physicians would be required to verify a patient’s terminal condition, inform them of their options and, if needed, refer the patient to a consulting physician and mental health professional. Consulting physicians would need to confirm a diagnosis, the patient’s mental capacity, and confirm the decision is a voluntary action.
Health care providers would report to the Department of Health under strict documentation, reporting and recordkeeping guidelines. The department would then publish an annual aggregated report.
Any unused medications would be required to be disposed of properly, and death certificates for patients who die by self-administration of prescribed medication must list the underlying terminal condition as the cause of death.
Those acting in good faith and not participating in prohibited actions would be granted immunities. However, the bill would not restrict any further liability for civil damages that result from negligent conduct or intentional misconduct by any person.
Health care providers and facilities would be able to prohibit participation in the act on their premises, but they must inform both their employees and patients before doing so. Furthermore, providers who participate in the act off-premises or outside of their employment scope cannot be sanctioned.
Under the act, insurance companies would be prohibited from any clauses within a patient’s insurance contract that affects decisions a patient could make about using end-of-life medications. Insurers would further be prohibited from denying benefits or discriminate based on the availability of the medication.
The bill points out that the act does not authorize a physician or any other person to end a patient’s life by lethal injection, mercy killing or active euthanasia.
Criminal penalties would apply if any person willfully altered or forges a request for medication or conceals or destroys a recission of the request with the intent or effect of causing the patient’s death. Coercion or influence of a patient to take the end-of-life medication also carries criminal penalties.
These actions would be considered a first-degree felony under Florida statutes and could come with a potential prison sentence of up to 30 years.
If passed, the act will come into effect July 1, 2025.
20 comments
It's Complicated
February 7, 2025 at 4:31 pm
“If passed,…”? LOL! This bill is political theatre, with ZERO chance of even being HEARD in either chamber of this legislature. Will serve as fund-raising fodder for both sides of the issue.
PeterH
February 7, 2025 at 5:27 pm
End of life decisions should be a private conversation between a patient and doctor. Like abortion, the gubberment should be removed from the discussion!
Earl Pitts "Ron & Casey's Official "Un-Official" 2028 POTUS Campaign Manager" AMERICAN
February 7, 2025 at 6:09 pm
Canada took this step several years back and now they are just for the most part assisting suicide for the mentally ill and will burn in Hell for doing it.
Earl
TruthBTold
February 7, 2025 at 7:40 pm
Yep, it’s not even a slippery slope, it’s a cliff.
GeeWoo
February 7, 2025 at 7:41 pm
In Canada, the Suicide Promotion hotline now calls you when you’re “terminally ill”.
Lynn
February 10, 2025 at 9:03 am
Not true at all.
My Canadian friends say it is FALSE and inflammatory
Dee Preste
February 8, 2025 at 7:47 am
The Democratic Party: the Pary of Death. In fact, we should rename it the Death-o-matic Party. Death for helpless infants in the womb, death for helpless, depressed elders looking for a reason to live and finding their last reason taken away, death for the legions of bored young people whom they allowed to sicken themselves with pot and kill themselves with
Chinese fentanyl: death, death, death. The only ones who get to live under the rule of the Death-o-matic Party are the ones whose votes can be harvested in the party’s endless, compulsive search for the political power to build their socialist Utopia. The Death-o-mats. Yep, that’s them.
Dee Prest
February 8, 2025 at 8:07 am
The Democratic Party: the Pary of Death. In fact, we should rename it the Death-o-matic Party. Death for the helpless unborn, death for helpless, depressed elders looking for a reason to live and finding their last reason taken away, death for the legions of bored young people whom they allowed to sicken themselves with pot and kill themselves with fentanyl: death, death, death. The only ones who get to live under the rule of the Death-o-matic Party are the ones whose votes can be harvested in the party’s endless, compulsive search for the political power to build their socialist Utopia. The Death-o-mats. Yep, that’s them.
Lynn
February 10, 2025 at 9:05 am
Inflammatory and should be removed.
Untrue and disgusting
SuzyQ
February 8, 2025 at 10:17 am
This proposed legislation is superfluous. Let’s have frank and candid conversations about euthanasia and suicide. Soldiers in combat have been making such decisions since the beginning of mankind.
Dee Prest
February 8, 2025 at 12:03 pm
The Democratic Party: the Pary of Death. In fact, we should rename it the Death-o-matic Party. The Death-o-mats. Yep, that’s them.
JD
February 8, 2025 at 12:46 pm
The Republican Party: The Party of Torture.
In fact, we should rename it the Torture-if-they-can Party. The Torture-cans. Yep, that’s them.
Endless wars, forced births, banning books, bootlicking billionaires. If there’s suffering to be had, they’ll can it, sell it, and slap an eagle on top.
The Torture-cans: Cruelty is the point.
Dee Prest
February 8, 2025 at 2:33 pm
Helpless children killed before birth, young people sickened into permanent dependency by pot and then killed by fentanyl, aged grandparents facing their last years in a society that would as soon see them dead and forgotten–this will be the legacy of the Death-o-matic Party. What does JD stand for? Just Dead?
JD
February 8, 2025 at 2:48 pm
Ah yes, the Torture-if-they-can Party has arrived, preaching about life while gutting healthcare, forcing births into poverty, and shrugging at school shootings (maybe send prayers?).
Pot is the villain? Cute. Meanwhile, your donors cash in on medical weed stocks, and your policies keep fentanyl flowing by blocking addiction treatment and protecting the billionaire that created it. And those aged grandparents? The ones you’d strip Social Security from while giving billionaires another tax cut?
And JD? Just Dead? Try Just Deliverance, since you see yourselves as righteous executioners, deciding who suffers and who thrives. Or maybe Just Despotism, because “freedom” only applies when it benefits you.
The Torture-cans don’t rule. They punish. Because in your world, justice isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about who holds the whip. And that’s the people in this country.
Dee Prest
February 8, 2025 at 4:07 pm
The Death-o-mats are the party of murderous warmongering: Biden stringing along the war in Ukraine so his Warbucks cronies can divide the billions in cash he extorted from Americans; Obama pumping billions into the terrorists of Iran and their devil-ridden minions, Clinton in the Balkans; LBJ, the man who nearly sacrificed America in Vietnam for the sake of his ego , Roosevelt taking on the globe to snap his suspenders about the strength of his white shoe New England heritage, Wilson sending American troops to fight in the trenches for old Europe after swearing to the voters he wouldn’t, and let’s not forget Truman, the leading common-man Death-o-crat of them all, as drunk on power as only a tinhorn hack death monger can be, who sent thousands of Americans into the frozen hell of Korea, but only after pushing the buttons that incinerated scores of thousands of Japanese civilians in order to see if his investment in the A-bomb actually worked. There you are, Just Deliverance, the scalding, hate-filled scars the Death-o-matic Party leaves on the record of the world’s history. Celebrate them, lift high the cup of human blood, and drink deep, while you bask in the shadows of Baal. It’s your proper wine.
JD
February 8, 2025 at 4:43 pm
Ah yes, the Torture-cans rewriting history like it’s their own personal fanfiction, clutching their pearls at war while worshipping the very party that has turned global bloodshed into a franchise.
Biden and Ukraine? Sure, let’s ignore Bush and Cheney’s multi-trillion-dollar Iraq disaster based on pure lies, or Reagan arming the mujahideen who later became the Taliban, or Trump handing Afghanistan back to the very people we fought for 20 years. Obama and Iran? Try Reagan and Iran-Contra, where he funneled weapons to actual terrorists.
Clinton in the Balkans? Oh, you mean stopping genocide? LBJ and Vietnam? Let’s talk about Nixon, who prolonged the war for political gain. Roosevelt? The guy who crushed actual Nazis? Wilson? Maybe you forgot Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, who led America straight into the Great Depression while licking Wall Street’s boots. And Truman? The guy who ended WWII. Meanwhile, Eisenhower was happy to let the military-industrial complex metastasize into the beast your party worships today.
So spare me the blood-soaked theatrics. The Torture-cans have never met a war they didn’t love, as long as someone else’s kids are dying for it. Celebrate that, lift high the cup of corporate profit, and drink deep while you bask in the shadows of oil barons and arms dealers.
It’s your proper wine, and you’ve been guzzling it for generations, Dee Prest.
Dee Prest
February 8, 2025 at 6:34 pm
Hey, Just, have you ever delivered an original thought? I think I may have to copyright this stuff just to keep you from ripping me off like you do. I mean, I am flattered by your imitation, but frankly it only makes it seem that you are regurgitating. . . OMG, I understand now! You aren’t an independent intellect, that much is clear. You’re not JD, you’re AI! It’s amazing! Are you ChatGPT, or Copilot or Perplexity? Here’s a quote from Matt Honen at MIT: “On that day, it pushed me a story about a new drone company from Eric Schmidt. I recognized the story. Forbes had reported it exclusively, earlier in the week, but it had been locked behind a paywall. The image on Perplexity’s story looked identical to one from Forbes. The language and structure were quite similar. It was effectively the same story,” The language and structure were quite similar. My, this explains a lot about you. With the views you express, you couldn’t really be quite human. AI en avant behind the curtain of JD! And down with humanity, it seems.
JD
February 9, 2025 at 11:01 am
Just so you see it, I posted it twice:
LOL.
Give us a break. The guy who spent three paragraphs ranting about “Death-o-mats” now whining about originality? You parroted half your talking points from AM radio and the other half from Facebook conspiracy threads. And now you’re mad that someone’s playing your game better than you?
And the AI accusation? Cute. I’m right here in Florida, sweating through the same overpriced hurricane insurance and inflation as the rest of us. Since you could not handle that, you pretend that anyone calling out your hypocrisy must have some kind of bot access. Why? Because the alternative is admitting you’re getting outmatched by a real, live human. I think your ilk have a quip for this situation: Cry Harder.
And since you’re flattered, you should be embarrassed. Every time you swing in a post, you hit yourself in the face. Keep swinging Dee Prest.
You amuse more than you know.
JD
February 9, 2025 at 11:07 am
Now that I think on it, it sounds like you’re actually doing the very thing you’re accusing me of. Project much?
JD
February 9, 2025 at 11:00 am
LOL.
Give us a break. The guy who spent three paragraphs ranting about “Death-o-mats” now whining about originality? You parroted half your talking points from AM radio and the other half from Facebook conspiracy threads. And now you’re mad that someone’s playing your game better than you?
And the AI accusation? Cute. I’m right here in Florida, sweating through the same overpriced hurricane insurance and inflation as the rest of us. Since you could not handle that, you pretend that anyone calling out your hypocrisy must have some kind of bot access. Why? Because the alternative is admitting you’re getting outmatched by a real, live human. I think your ilk have a quip for this situation: Cry Harder.
And since you’re flattered, you should be embarrassed. Every time you swing in a post, you hit yourself in the face. Keep swinging Dee Prest.
You amuse more than you know.
Comments are closed.