‘Despair over hope’: Pro-life nurses group ‘will not comply’ with Delware’s assisted suicide bill

June 28, 2024

A coalition of pro-life nurses has condemned Delaware’s assisted suicide bill and vowed that they “will not comply” with the legislation if it is signed into law.

The Christian Post reports that the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses has condemned H.B. 140 which would allow terminally ill adult patients who have received a prognosis that they have less than 6 months to live to request or self-administer drugs to hasten their deaths.

The proposed law states that the individual’s attending physician or attending advanced practice registered nurse and a consulting physician must agree on the patient’s condition and life-ending decision. The law would also require two waiting periods and provide the patient the opportunity to rescind the request to end their own life.

Medical professionals would be granted immunity under the law, provided they are, “acting in good faith and in accordance with generally accepted health-care standards under this Act.”

Marie Ashby is the executive director of the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses (NAPN) which calls the bill a “moral catastrophe.”

Ashby told the Christian Post: “Legitimate healthcare heals; it doesn’t kill. This law perverts our profession’s sacred duty, turning nurses from guardians of life into agents of death. We will not be silent. We will not comply.”

NAPN president Dorothy Kane agrees, saying, “This isn’t about choice — it’s about coercion. HB140 does not empower patients; it abandons them. It tells the sick, the elderly, and the disabled that their lives are burdens to be discarded.” 

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