New Jersey doctors would be legally permitted to write prescriptions to enable terminally ill patients to end their lives under legislation that advanced Thursday after a dramatic hearing in Trenton.

The “Aid in Dying” bill cleared the state Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee in a 6-3 vote following 90 minutes of often tearful, pleading testimony from people who spoke for and against it.

Before her husband died from pancreatic cancer five years ago, Debra Dunn of Paramus said she watched him endure muscle spasms and “agonizing pain ... nothing could relieve the pain.”

“He expressed his wish to die to me three times,” she said. “Please have the fortitude and courage to do what is right for the people of New Jersey."

Kristen Hanson of Albany asked the committee to consider what happened when her husband, JJ Hanson, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2014.

“He was told he only had four months to live. Three doctors said there was nothing he could do. But he outlived that grim prognosis by four years,” said Hanson. She said her husband thought about suicide, but dismissed the idea and in his remaining time, led the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, a national organization that fights assisted suicide laws.

“If he had assisted suicide pills with him in those darkest moments, he might have taken them. And you can’t undo that. You can’t unmake that choice,” she said.

WHAT THE BILL DOES

The bill (A1504) applies to people in New Jersey who have received a terminal diagnosis, defined as an incurable, irreversible and medically confirmed disease that will end the person’s life within six months. Disabilities are not terminal illnesses, according to the legislation.

Medical professionals and religious leaders, as well as people with physical disabilities, warned that people facing the last months or weeks of their lives may be steered toward suicide by subtle family pressure, guilt over being a burden, and insurance companies’ refusal to pay for complex and expensive care.

To assuage these concerns, sponsors wrote the bill with “checks and balances,” including a 15-day waiting period, and a requirement that two individuals must attest the patient is of sound mind. A doctor must refer the patient to a psychiatrist or psychologist to determine mental stability.

Anyone who coerces a patient into requesting the medication would face up to three to five years in prison, a $15,000 or both, according to the bill. Doctors and pharmacists would also be protected from arrest or the loss of their license by complying with the law.

THE ARGUMENTS PRO AND CON

Opponents also argued that passing the law would somehow legitimize suicide, especially among young people who suffer from depression.

Len Deo from the New Jersey Family Policy Council pointed out suicide is the second leading was of death among teens.

“Even if one person sees it as an acceptable way out of their depression because of the passage of this bill, is this a policy worth pursuing?” Deo said.

The bill is about something “totally different," Sen. Richard Codey, D-Essex, one of the bill’s sponsors and a member of the health committee. "There is no hope. This is about the end of life.”

Dawn Teresa Parkot, a disability advocate who delivered her testimony via an audio device, said it would be foolish to think the law would not be abused and people with disabilities like her would not be vulnerable.

“Someone else could put the pills in the patient’s mouth, the feeding tube or IV bag,” Parkot said. “There mere presence of a lethal drug could provide an alibi.”

She also cast doubt on the argument that people avail themselves to physician-assisted suicide because the pain in unbearable. There are experts and studies that point to the loss of autonomy and the fear of “being a burden” on their families are the biggest motivators, she said.

Deborah Pasik, a physician from Morristown would disgree. She told the committee she has witnessed the “sheer panic of someone drowning in their own fluids” and unbearable pain. “Hospice care does not guarantee a pain free death,” she said.

Proponents of the bill said patients ought to be given a choice how to live out their last days.

State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, who sat in and voted on the bill in place of state Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, said in a statement after the vote he had just witnessed the slow death of a relative.

“I watched someone I loved suffer for the last six months of her life from cancer while her children watched. Her suffering was prolonged to a point where she entered a hospice where her medications were increased until she passed away,” Sweeney said. "I don’t think that’s very humane. You should have a right to avoid needlessly suffering for six months if that is your decision. ”

Sweeney and Senate sponsor Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, do not sit on the health committee but participated instead of Sens. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, and Fred Madden, D-Gloucester, who voted against the bill when it was up for a committee vote in 2016.

Marie Tasy of New Jersey Right to Life took note and called this “stacking the deck."

This "demonstrates a shameful abuse of power by legislative leaders to move a bill that might have otherwise failed to garner enough votes to be released from committee, Tasy said.

WHAT’S NEXT

The bill passed the state Assembly Judiciary Committee in March by a 5-2 vote. But even with Thursday’s approval in the Senate Health Committee, the legislation has a long way to go. It must pass both houses of the state Legislature and then be signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy.

Murphy has not signaled whether he supports the measure.

The latest poll, taken by Rutgers University in 2015, found 63 percent of residents said they believed it was morally acceptable to let terminally ill people end their lives; 29 percent did not.

California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Washington D.C. enacted right to die laws. Montana’s “right-to-die” was established under a court ruling, which provides physicians a legal defense or immunity from prosecution.

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