新泽西州将允许绝症患者合法自杀

Terminally ill New Jersey adults will be able to decide when it’s time to die starting Thursday, when the state begins allowing patients to self-administer lethal drugs.

从周四开始，身患绝症的新泽西州成年人将能够决定何时死亡，届时该州将开始允许患者自行使用致命药物。

The “Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act” lets mentally sound Garden State residents with six months or fewer left to live request a cocktail of drugs to end their lives.

“为绝症而死的医疗援助法案”，允许心智健全的花园州居民，在生命只剩下六个月或更少的时间里，请求一种鸡尾酒药物来结束他们的生命。

“This law provides incredible peace of mind to people in my situation, knowing they have this option within reach,” said Susan Boyce, an advocate for the law and potentially one of its beneficiaries, according to NJ.com. “It does a lot to counteract the fear and uncertainty about what the end is going to be like, and are you going to be able to stand it.”

据NJ.com报道，该法律的倡导者、潜在受益者之一苏珊·博伊斯(Susan Boyce)说:“这项法律给我这种情况的人带来了难以置信的平静，因为他们知道自己有这个选择。”“它能很大程度上抵消人们对结局的恐惧和不确定性，你能承受得了吗?”

Boyce, 56, has a slow-moving and incurable disease that will eventually leave her unable to breathe and render her immune system ineffectual.

56岁的博伊斯患有一种慢性不治之症，最终会导致她无法呼吸，导致免疫系统失效。

The question of whether patients should be allowed to end their own lives has become increasingly pressing as medical technology’s ability to keep people physically alive has outpaced its ability to provide an acceptable quality of life while doing so.

是否应该允许病人结束自己的生命，这个问题变得越来越紧迫，因为医疗技术让人活着的能力，已经超过了它在这样做的同时提供可接受的生活质量的能力。

Boyce and others have advocated for the law’s adoption in New Jersey for eight years.

八年来，博伊斯等人一直主张在新泽西州采用这项法律。

“I firmly believe in this law, and I had the ability to speak out, to represent a group of patients who are terminally ill and don’t have the strength,” Boyce said.

博伊斯说:“我坚定地相信这项法律，我有能力代表一群身患绝症但没有这种能力的病人发声。”

The state-approved the new measure and Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill, despite his reservations as a Catholic, in April.

尽管菲尔墨菲作为天主教徒持保留意见，但州政府批准了这项新措施，并于4月签署了该法案。

Patients must prove their residency by providing physicians with a valid state-issued ID, voter registration, recent New Jersey tax filing or “any other government record that the attending physician reasonably believes to demonstrate the individual’s current residency in this State,” according to the law.

根据这项法律，患者必须向医生提供有效的州签发的身份证、选民登记、最近的新泽西州税务申报，或“主治医生认为能够证明个人目前在该州居住情况的任何其他政府记录”，以证明其合法居住权。

A total 3,478 people in the US have been allowed to end their lives under death-with-dignity laws passed in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, according to information compiled by NJ.com.

据NJ.com网站收集的信息显示，美国加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、夏威夷州、俄勒冈州、佛蒙特州和华盛顿州通过了“尊严死亡法”，共有3478人被允许结束生命。

Legal challenges to right-to-die laws in Washington DC and Montana, meanwhile, have held up the practice there.

与此同时，华盛顿特区和蒙大拿州对死亡权利法的法律挑战阻碍了这种做法。