Legislation declares suicides to be against public policy

     House Bill 474:  Sponsored by State Representative Merle Kearns (R-Springfield).  The bill will declare that assisted suicides are against the public policy of the State of Ohio and would create the Compassion Care Task Force to study and make recommendations on treatment of intractable pain.  It would also make assisting a suicide grounds for disciplinary action by the Sate Nursing Board and by the State Medical Board.  The bill will also provide that a court of common pleas is to grant an injunction enjoining any action related to assisting suicide if it finds there is reason to believe that the person enjoined is preparing to assist a suicide, is in the course of assisting a suicide, or has assisted a suicide.  The injunction is to prohibit the person from assisting any suicide in Ohio regardless of who is being assisted.

     "Assisted Suicide" or "assisting suicide" means knowingly doing either of the following, with the purpose of helping another person to commit or attempt suicide:  providing the physical means by which the person commits or attempts to commit suicide; or participating in a physical act by which the person commits or attempts to commit suicide.

     The bill does not:  prohibit a person who has the authority to do so from administering, prescribing, or dispensing medications or treatments to relieve a patient's pain or discomfort, even if the medication or treatment may hasten or increase the risk of death unless the medication or treatment is administered, prescribed, or dispensed to cause death;  prohibit or affect the use of continuation, or the withholding or withdrawal, of life-sustaining treatment, or comfort care to a principal under a durable power of attorney for health care or any other health care decision made by an attorney in fact;  or affect or limit the authority of a physician, a health care facility, a person employed by or under contract with a health care facility, or emergency service personnel to provide or withhold health care to a person in accordance with reasonable medical standards applicable in an emergency situation.