The US House of Representatives Oversight Committee [official website] voted [materials] Monday to block Washington, DC’s Death with Dignity legislation [text, PDF]. HJ Res 27 was voted out of committee by a 22-14 vote to begin the process of preventing physician assisted death after the city passed the measure [JURIST report] last year. The move is permitted under the Home Rule Act of 1973 [text, PDF], which allows Congress to intervene in the affairs of the District. The mayor of DC released a statement condemning [press release] the vote. The legislation will still need to be approved by Congress.

The DC bill is similar to previously passed measures, beginning in 1997 with the Oregon Death with Dignity Act [official materials]. The Oregon law was upheld [JURIST report] by the US Supreme Court in 2006. In 2008 the Montana First Judicial District ruled [JURIST report] that physicians cannot be prosecuted under state statutes for providing prescriptions for lethal drugs to terminally ill patients. Washington state also approved a similar lethal prescription ballot initiative in 2008, and the Vermont legislature approved legislation [JURIST reports] in 2013. In August the California Superior Court rejected a challenge [JURIST report] to the state’s recently enacted aid in dying law [text]. Colorado also recently voted in Proposition 106 [JURIST report], which granted terminally ill adult patients to right to self-administer lethal drugs after receiving approval from two physicians.