A personal plea to legislators to legalize assisted suicide. A week later, she is dead
PROVIDENCE − In a small, but clear voice, Linda Abrants made her case for the right to die "peacefully with dignity at home."
Speaking to the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Feb. 15, at the latest in a decades-long series of hearings on bills to legalize physician-assisted suicide, Abrants told the legislators: "I have reached the end."
"While I cannot escape death, I may be able to control the duration of my suffering, pain and physical decay."
A week to the day after making this difficult pilgrimage to the Rhode Island State House, Linda Abrants died, her Feb. 22 death confirmed by the Olson & Parent Funeral Home.
It is unknown at this time how she died, but family friend Mary Landreville told The Journal she dropped by two days earlier to bring Abrants balloons on her 49th birthday.
"She had a beautiful birthday. She was happy. She was ready." And as it turned out, "she had a nice farewell," Landreville told The Journal. "It was just her time," Landreville said.
More: Assisted-suicide bill again introduced to lawmakers. Here's what it would do.
Abrants had said what she wanted to say at the Feb. 15 televised hearing on legislation that Rep. Edith Ajello has now introduced 10 years in a row − her bill the latest in a series of efforts, dating back to the 1990s − to legalize what one speaker at the hearing called "medical aid in dying."
Abrants' story, as she told it:
A motorcycle accident 22 years ago left her paralyzed from the waist down − and in a wheelchair. But she "built a life."
"I purchased a vehicle. I dragged myself in and out of it... It was my freedom. I went to the gym, building strength and independence....I found love."
In 2021, she was featured in local news stories − and a "Today Show" segment − about the kindness of strangers.
Abrants lived in North Smithfield, less than a mile from Phantom Motor Works on Paul Street.
"I live up the street and during COVID, the gym closed so I was like, 'I have to do something for exercise,' so I would do laps around my complex, go down the street to get a Gatorade," she said at the time.
"One day she needed air in her tires, so I did that for her," said Christian Barber, the lead technician at Phantom Motor Works LLC. "Then after that, she came back with a malfunction to her wheelchair lift, so I repaired that once."
When it broke again, Abrants told NBC10, "Barber worked on the lift for about six weeks. Parts he had hoped were in stock, were out of stock...He had to like reinvent the wheel and figure out a way to make this lift work better and be more dependable for me long-term."
A second local company, Ideal Lawnmower in North Smithfield, also helped.
As she told this part of the story to NBC10, "a friend of mine from high school who I hadn't heard from for like 30 years...put a poster [up] for me and a donation bucket...I rolled into their shop and this guy steps out from behind the counter hands me an envelope ... signed, 'The angel that you didn't know you had' and the money it cost for my lift to be fixed was right there in the envelope."
Her plea to legislators
"I'm proud of these accomplishments,'' Abrants told told R.I. lawmakers on Feb. 15, "proud of my will to endure and ability to overcome.
"I say this as [it is] important for all of you to understand. Death is not my objective. My objective is to pass peacefully with dignity at home."
By that time, as she explained it, an infection had done unimaginable and irreparable damage.
"Shortly after the accident, I developed an infection in my lower back and pelvis, which I've been fighting ever since. The infection has resulted in wounds that cannot be closed or corrected, wounds that continue to consume my flesh, and with it my quality of life."
She offered to show the lawmakers "photos of the wounds I now live with... wounds that look like something from a horror movie or the frontlines of a war, wounds in which bone is now visible."
"Dig," she begged them, "please dig deep and find the empathy and compassion to allow me the simple right, the right to end the suffering while I retain the ability to do so."
If passed, how would assisted suicide work in RI?
The bill introduced again this year would allow terminally ill patients – those suffering from a disease that would result in death within six months – to have access to a lethal prescription, provided that they meet several standards.
Among them: A doctor would have to determine the patient is capable of making an informed decision.
More: Rafe's battle ends: How one man's ordeal in RI's mental health system led to suicide
Patients would have to state three times – once in writing – that they wish to die. One of the witnesses present at the time of the written request would have to be someone other than a relative, heir or anyone else who could benefit from the person's death. Two doctors would also have to agree on the patient's diagnosis and prognosis. The patient would have to be able to administer the medication themselves.
The legislation is modeled on the practices of the 10 states that allow it, including Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine, New Mexico and the District of Columbia.
The bill has been named the "Lila Manfield Sapinsley Compassionate Care Act" in honor of the former state senator who died at age 92 in 2014. She had been working to craft the legislation when she died, her daughter, Patricia, told lawmakers in 2015.
"She died sitting in her reading chair," son-in-law Harold Levy told The Providence Journal soon after Sapinsley died. "You can't ask for much more."
Arguments against the bill
The "Death with Dignity" campaign began in earnest, in Rhode Island, in the 1990s as other states began to pass their own assisted suicide laws. The Journal introduced Rhode Islanders to the plight of Noel David Earley, in a five-part series that documented his losing battle with Lou Gehrig's disease.
Faced with two opposing bills − one to legalize doctor-assisted suicide and the other to make it a felony − Rhode Island lawmakers in 1996 sided with the Diocese of Providence and anti-abortion advocates who had lobbied heavily to make assisted suicide a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. Then-Gov. Lincoln Almond signed it.
The Catholic Diocese remains the strongest voice against assisted suicide.
In his written testimony this year, the Rev. Bernard Healey, chief lobbyist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, repeated the arguments.
He said the very notion of physician-assisted suicide, which he defined as the "intentional taking of human life ... violates the most basic tenet of our belief in the dignity and sacredness of life and simultaneously poses many dangers to vulnerable populations," like the "poor, minorities, elderly, mentally ill, disabled and terminally ill."
Healey said those facing terminal illness deserve to be surrounded by compassion and support rather than handed a prescription to take their own life.
Others brought a different perspective, including the Rev. Donnie Anderson, most recently the pastor at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in New Bedford, who called it "unconscionable" to force people to suffer "beyond all imagination."
Linda's parting words to the legislature
"If you hold reservations, are opposed to this bill, have the courage to approach me after these proceedings. Have the courage to view the evidence.
"Look me in the eye and explain why I must endure this torment and suffering without relief. We as a society...[must] allow citizens such as myself to pass in peace with dignity and reasonable comfort and as little pain as possible.
"We provide our household pets this consideration. Am I a human being undeserving of the same care of which a dog or cat is entitled? Please be compassionate, merciful, and loving. Please pass this bill and in doing so, secure my right to meet my end on my terms, just as I have my life."
More people spoke, for and against. The bill was once again "held for further study."
On Sunday, Ajello, the Providence lawmaker who has introduced the bill again and again, told The Journal that she assumes Abrants died of natural causes, after seeing the photos Abrants gave her of the "unimaginable" decay of her body.
Having seen those photos, "it's hard for me to believe that she was able to be at the State House so recently talking with us, so strong that she was able to do that when she was so near death.
"That says to me that she also would have been able" − were it legal in Rhode Island − "to have administered by swallowing a drug that would've ended her life sooner if she wanted to."
"I think that we need to be open in our minds to see, 'well, I might not want to do that, but I can see where I am willing to let someone else make that decision for themselves'."
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: A personal plea to legislators to legalize assisted suicide. A week later, she is dead
