DOVER, Del. (AP) — Democratic Gov. John Carney on Friday vetoed a bill allowing doctor-assisted suicide in Delaware, saying he is “fundamentally and morally opposed” to people killing themselves under the guidance of state law.
Carney said in his veto letter that he has consistently opposed the legislation, while recognizing the “thoughtful views” expressed by both supporters and opponents. He also noted that the legislation cleared both the House and Senate by single votes, an indication that the issue is divisive and controversial.
“Last year, the American Medical Association reaffirmed its view that physician assisted suicide is ‘fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer,’ ” Carney wrote. “And although I understand not everyone shares my views, I am fundamentally and morally opposed to state law enabling someone, even under tragic and painful circumstances, to take their own life.”
Democratic lawmakers blasted Carney’s decision, accusing him of putting his personal feelings ahead of the will of voters.
“The final days of a dying individual should not be dictated by the personal beliefs of one individual, instead, our laws must reflect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Delawareans who support this fundamental right,” the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Paul Baumbach, said in a prepared statement.
Baumbach, a Newark Democrat, said he has been in contact with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, and that House Speaker Valerie Longhurst has already expressed support for a veto override. Any attempt at an override, however, could be complicated by the fact that Baumbach is retiring, and Longhurst lost a primary bid for reelection this month. Their terms end at midnight Nov. 5.
Senate Democratic leaders said they were “deeply disappointed” by Carney’s decision but vowed that doctor-assisted suicide will eventually become law in Delaware.
“Whether via a veto override in 2024 or via new legislation in 2025, there will come a day soon when this legislation becomes law, and Delawareans are afforded the respect and support they deserve in their final stages of life,” Senate majority leaders said in a prepared statement.
The bill Carney vetoed won final passage in June on an 11-10 vote in the Senate. That vote came after senators voted by that same margin to reconsider the legislation and rescind a vote taken the prior week in which the bill was defeated. Sen. Kyra Hoffner, a Smyrna-area Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, cast the deciding vote after tearfully declining to vote the previous week.
Republicans harshly criticized the measure, with Senate Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn saying the bill suggests that “some lives are less worth living.”
Democrat Majority Leader Bryan Townsend countered that assisted suicide is not about “eliminating” terminally ill patients, but “empowering” them.
The Patients Rights Action Fund, an advocacy group opposed to assisted suicide, said Carney demonstrated a commitment to “protecting Delaware’s most vulnerable people, including people with disabilities, older adults, and historically underrepresented communities.”
“By vetoing this legislation, Governor Carney has reaffirmed the foundational principles of medical ethics, safeguarding people who might otherwise face pressure or coercion to end their lives due to external factors, such as economic challenges or societal discrimination,” the group said.
Currently, doctor-assisted suicide is legal in only 10 states, along with the District of Columbia.
The Delaware bill was the latest iteration of legislation repeatedly introduced by Baumbach since 2015, and the only version to make it to a floor vote.
The legislation would allow an adult resident of Delaware who is diagnosed with a terminal illness and expected to die within six months to request lethal prescription drugs from a doctor or an advanced- practice registered nurse who has primary responsibility for the terminal illness. A consulting physician or nurse would have to confirm the diagnosis and prognosis of the patient, who must have “decision-making capacity.”
The patient would have to be evaluated by a psychiatrist or a psychologist if any of the medical professionals was concerned that the patient lacks decision-making capacity. A person also would not qualify for doctor-assisted suicide solely because of age or disability.
The patient would have to make two oral requests for a lethal prescription, followed by a written request, and would have to wait at least 15 days after the initial request before receiving and self-administering the drugs. The attending doctor or nurse would have to wait at least 48 hours after the written request, which must be signed by two witnesses, before prescribing the drugs.
FILE - Delaware Gov. John Carney speaks at an Amtrak facility in Bear, Del., Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday. It was the deadliest such strike on Lebanon’s capital in decades, with Lebanese authorities reporting at least 14 people killed and dozens more wounded in the attack.
The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the strike on Beirut's southern Dahiya district killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, as well as 10 other Hezbollah operatives.
“We will continue pursuing our enemies in order to defend our citizens, even in Dahiya, in Beirut,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, describing the Israeli strike that targeted Akil as part of “a new phase of war.”
Several hours later, Hezbollah confirmed Akil's death. In a statement, the Lebanese militant group described Akil as “a great jihadist leader” and said he had “joined the procession of his brothers, the great martyr leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad, work, wounds, sacrifices, dangers, challenges, achievements, and victories.”
Akil served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council. He was sanctioned by the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks.
Last year, the U.S. State Department posted a $7 million reward for information leading to his identification, location, arrest or conviction, citing his role in the embassy bombing and in the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.
The strike came as a new cycle of escalation between the enemies raised fears of a full-out war erupting in the Middle East.
Hours before the Israeli strike, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets as the region awaited the revenge promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over this week’s mass explosions of pagers belonging to members of the Shiite militant group.
The Israeli military did not provide the identities of the other Hezbollah commanders allegedly killed in its strike on the crowded neighborhood just kilometers from downtown Beirut.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said at least 14 people were killed and 66 others were wounded in the attack, which leveled the apartment building where the Israeli army claimed Akil had been meeting with other militants in the basement. Nine of the wounded were in serious condition, the ministry added.
Local networks in Lebanon broadcast footage showing first responders sifting through the rubble of a collapsed high-rise in the Jamous area in the heart of Dahiya, where Hezbollah conducts many of its political and security operations.
Friday's airstrike — the deadliest such attack on a neighborhood of Beirut since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody, monthlong war in 2006 — hit during rush hour, as people were leaving work and children heading home from school.
At Beirut's St. Therese Hospital near the scene of the airstrike, crowds flocked to donate blood for those wounded in the attack.
“We are all together in this situation, so it’s my obligation,” said Hussein Harake, who lined up to donate blood.
From Israel, Gallant said he briefed senior military officials on the strike and vowed Israel would press on against Hezbollah "until we achieve our goal, ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes.”
The strike came after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting, largely targeting Israeli military sites. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets. The few that got through sparked small fires but caused little damage and no Israeli casualties.
Hezbollah described its latest wave of rocket salvos as a response to past Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon — not as revenge for the mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed at least 37 people - including two children - and wounded 2,900 others in attacks widely attributed to Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in this week's sophisticated attacks, which signaled a major escalation in the past 11 months of simmering conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel ignited the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks have largely struck areas in northern Israel that had been evacuated and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon.
The last time Israel hit Beirut was in a July airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur.
“The attack in Lebanon is to protect Israel,” Hagari said at a news conference following Friday's strike, describing both Shukr and Akil as the two military officials closest to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.
Hagari also accused Akil of plotting a series of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians dating back decades, including a never-realized plan to invade northern Israel in a similar way to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks.
After Friday's Israeli airstrike, Hezbollah announced attacks on northern Israel, two of which it said targeted an intelligence base from where it claimed Israel directed assassinations.
Israel remains on edge, with Nasrallah vowing Thursday to keep up strikes on Israel despite the humiliating “blow” he said Hezbollah suffered in the sabotage of its communication devices.
“We are in a tense period,” Hagari told reporters Friday. “We are prepared on high alert both offensively and defensively.”
In recent days, Israel has sent a powerful fighting force to the northern border, designated as an official war goal the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel and ordered citizens near Israel's border with Lebanon to stay close to bomb shelters. Hezbollah has maintained that it will only halt its fire when there is a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hamas, which continues to fight Israel in Gaza, condemned the Israeli strike targeting Akil as a “new crime” and “violation of Lebanese sovereignty.”
Even as the world's attention turns to the surge in Israel-Hezbollah tensions, Palestinian casualties in the besieged Gaza Strip continued to mount.
Palestinian health authorities early Friday reported that 15 people, including children, were killed in Israeli strikes that targeted a family home and a group of people on the street in Gaza City. Israel's campaign in Gaza has already killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians.
In response to a request for comment on the latest Gaza strikes, the Israeli military insisted on Friday that it took “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm” and accused Hamas of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas.
Israel's bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip — launched in response to Hamas killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage in southern Israel on Oct. 7 — has wreaked vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Residents look on as rescuers arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Residents look on as rescuers arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescuers work at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescuers work at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Members of Hezbollah stand on a fire truck as rescuers work at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescuers work at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Rescuers work at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
People stand on top of a damaged car at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People gather near a damaged building at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A woman checks the scene of a missile strike from her damaged house in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Rescuers carry a body at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Ambulances arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
People stand on top of a damaged car at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People and rescuers gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People gather near a damaged building at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
