Here's a link to my full story at spokesman.com on how Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, continues to refuse to hold hearings on three bills seeking to amend the  "conscience law" he helped sponsor last year to protect patients' living wills and advance care directives from being overridden by a care-giver as they're dying. "Where we don't want to go is we don't want to compel the health care provider to assist somebody to commit suicide," Loertscher said today. Asked if he was equating assisted suicide with living wills or advance care directives that call for disconnecting a dying patient's artificial life supports, such as ventilators or feeding tubes, Loertscher said, "You could view it that way." Idaho already has legislation pending in the Senate this year to specifically outlaw assisted suicide and make it a felony.

Loertscher said he'll consider another bill in his committee on Tuesday from two anti-abortion groups that helped write the original conscience law, "in an effort to try to clarify it." But he said HB 28, from Rep. Leon Smith, R-Twin Falls, would destroy the conscience law. "It just absolutely tears it to shreds," Loertscher said. He also said he hadn't yet decided whether to schedule print hearings on conscience law amendment bills from Reps. Tom Trail, R-Moscow, and Phylis King, D-Boise.