NORTHAMPTON — Area constituents came together recently in a sit-down meeting with Rep. Peter Kocot to urge the lawmaker to support proposed legislation enabling terminally ill patients to be prescribed medication that would accelerate their already certain deaths.

Kocot, a Democrat whose district includes Northampton, listened Friday during the gathering at First Churches of Northampton as some of those in attendance discussed their own experiences, in which their loved ones who were either terminally ill or suffering from a degenerative condition, died slowly and, often, painfully. Like Andrea Reber, who knew a woman whose brother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

“They were not able to control his pain,” she told the group, “so he was in agonizing pain until his death. And she had to watch him go through that.”

Toward the beginning of the meeting, John Berkowitz, 70, of Northampton, who served as the event’s organizer, read aloud a letter signed by nearly three-dozen local supporters of the End of Life Options Act (H. 1194). Most recently, the bill was referred to the Joint Committee on Public Health.

Berkowitz, a local activist, also leads support groups across the Pioneer Valley called “Living Fully, Aging Gracefully, and Befriending Death,” he said.

“We believe that people who are terminally ill and mentally competent should have the choice and right to end their life in a peaceful, painless, and dignified manner with a prescription from their doctor, rather than prolong their own and their loved ones’ suffering for a few weeks or months as their illness degrades their quality of life,” Berkowitz said, reading from the letter. “We feel strongly that this bill offers qualified Massachusetts residents the choice and the right of self-determination, to decide what care, treatment, and quality of life they want at the end of life. And that the proposed law contains the necessary safeguards to prevent potential abuse of elders, people with disabilities or mental illness, members of ethnic groups or minorities, and low-income people.”

The introduction of this legislation is not the first time Massachusetts has considered such measures. In 2012, voters just rejected a ballot measure (with 49 percent in favor) that would have allowed terminally ill individuals to be prescribed lethal drugs.

Across the country, there are six states, as well as Washington, D.C., that, in some capacity, support a patient’s right to end his or her own life: California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Judy Hyde, who also attended the meeting, told the group Friday right-to-die issues weren’t just legislative issues, but were also pressing issues of morality.

“I just don’t get it. Why do we have this double standard of humanity ... for animals that we don’t have for people,” Hyde said. “It’s always been easier to raise money for animal shelters than it has been for people shelters. And for me, this is a moral issue as much as anything. It’s immoral to not relieve suffering when we know how to do it.”

Hyde also pressed Kocot to provide the group with insight as to how the bill, which is still in its infancy in the legislative process, was faring in Boston among his colleagues. Others asked Kocot whether he would consider signing onto the bill. However, the deadline for representatives to join bills being introduced this legislative session was in February, but that he would speak with the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Louis L. Kafka, D-Norfolk, to discuss the legislation.

Kocot did not say one way or the other whether he would get behind the bill, citing the need to continue to discuss the proposed legislation’s particulars.

“So let me just state overall, I have no opposition to the theory that you’re putting forth that individuals should have the right to make those choices about end-of-life situations,” he said. “But the details of it, I think, need to be very, very carefully discussed and debated and talked-about.”

Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.

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