Brittany Maynard

This undated file photo provided by the Maynard family shows Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old terminally ill woman who died under Oregon's law that allows the terminally ill to end their own lives. The Assembly invoked her name when the passed a similar bill on Thursday. (AP Photo/Maynard Family, File)

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TRENTON -- People faced with a terminal illness and less than six months left to live would be allowed to obtain a prescription for lethal drugs to end their lives, under a bill the state Assembly approved Thursday.

The controversial bill passed by a 41-28 vote with five abstentions.

This is the second time in as many legislative sessions the 80-member Assembly has approved a measure to protect physicians from legal action so they may write lethal prescriptions for terminal patients. But its future prospects are unclear. Senate support has wavered for the bill, and Gov. Chris Christie has vowed to veto it if it arrives on his desk.

"This discussion is about revisiting a statute last looked at in 1978 that never took into account an individual's right to control their body and their circumstances," said Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester), the bill's prime sponsor. "Like society, medicine, palliative care and hospice services have changed dramatically since then."

"While there are many choices available right now that may be right for certain people, there is one more choice, not currently available, that deserves an honest discussion," he said.

Before he cast his "no" vote, Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris), asked his colleagues to consider the message such a law would be sending elderly and disabled people who get sick.

"I don't think this bill makes our state more compassionate," Webber said. "For those people who have spent their lives taking care of us, at the end of their lives we owe them more than the opportunity to take a few pills."

Elderly and disabled people in our families "might see this not as a right to die but an obligation, to preserve their assets for us, so they are not a burden to us," Webber added.

The bill (A2451) would allow patients with a terminal illness to request a prescription from their attending physician that they will take to end their lives. A terminal illness is defined as "an irreversibly fatal illness, disease, or condition with prognosis, based upon reasonable medical certainty, of a life expectancy of six months or less."

Patients would have to make the request of their doctors in writing and twice in person, with 15 days in between the first and second oral request. The physician would have to give the patient a chance to rescind the request, and a consulting physician would be asked to certify the diagnosis and reaffirm the patient is capable of making the decision.

Assemblyman Troy Singleton (D-Burlington) invoked the name of Brittany Manyard, the 29-year-old woman who became the public face of the right-to-die movement when she moved to Oregon to use its aid in dying law to end her life in 2014. California, her home state at the time, had not yet passed a similar law.

Singleton posed the question Manyard, herself, asked her detractors: "I would not tell anyone else to choose death with dignity. My question is who has the right to tell me i don't deserve this choice?"

"I ask you not to take the opportunity away from someone who is suffering," he said.

Opponents argued the safeguards in the bill do not go far enough to protect people with disabilities, or guard against the mislabeling of people as terminally ill when they are not. They said having a law on the books like this may make critically ill patients feel compelled to end their lives so they are not a burden on their families.

The bill's many objectors held a press conference hours before the vote to urge the Assembly to vote no.

Patricia Staley, a hospice nurse from Mercer County, said no one among the thousands of terminally ill patients she has cared for have ever expressed interest in killing themselves.

Pain associated with dying can be managed by medication. "There is not a need for physician-assisted suicide," Staley said.

"There is one God, we are not him and we shouldn't try to play him," Sen. Steven Oroho (R-Sussex), said, explaining his problem with the bill. "I believe in miracles. I know they happen."

New Jersey would join California, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Vermont if the "Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act" is eventually signed into law.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.