Colorado voters will decide in November whether a terminally ill adult should be allowed to take a prescribed drug to cause his or her death.
If voters pass Initiative 145, Colorado would become the sixth state to authorize some type of end-of-life option for the terminally ill.
“Today we are one step closer to ensuring that Coloradans have control over all of their health care decisions when facing terminal illness,” said Julie Selsberg, a leader in the campaign whose father slowly died from Lou Gehrig’s disease after writing a letter to Colorado lawmakers urging them to pass a law allowing medical aid in dying.
“End-of-life decisions are very intimate and personal. This proposal encourages more discussion between patients and doctors about the patient’s end-of-life wishes and allows doctors who wish to provide this very compassionate care the ability to do so.”
The initiative requires anyone exercising the option to be at least 18 years old, have a terminal illness with less than six months to live and be able to self-administer the drugs that cause death.
To qualify for the ballot, the measure needed at least 98,492 petitions signed by registered voters. Proponents turned in 155,676 on Aug. 4. Through random sampling, the secretary of state’s office projected it will have 108,777 qualified signatures.
Initiative 145 becomes the fifth measure Colorado voters will decide during this year’s general election.
Initiative 20, the ColoradoCare universal health care program, and Initiative 101 to raise in the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, already have made the ballot.
Two measures were referred to the ballot by the General Assembly: Amendment T, which would remove a reference to slavery in the state constitution, and Amendment U, a property tax exemption for interest earnings of less than $6,000 off of leasing government property.
At the local level, the Denver Metro Scientific and Cultural Facilities Board is asking for approval of a tax measure, Ballot Issue 4B, to apply in Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Boulder, Denver, Douglas (except Castle Rock and Larkspur) and Jefferson counties.
Petitions are still being counted in six other ballot measures, including creation of a presidential primary, a separate proposal to allow unaffiliated voters in party primaries, mandatory setbacks from oil and gas operations, local government authority over oil and gas operations, tougher requirements for constitutional amendments and new tobacco taxes.
