BOSTON — Most legislative committees are still getting organized and have not yet held their first hearing of the new two-year session. But for House members of the Committee on Public Health, the clock is already ticking on one of the most controversial matters that perennially comes before them.

Under new rules adopted by the House this term, bills filed by representatives (or filed in the House by others) must be acted on by the committee of jurisdiction “not later than 60 calendar days after the matter is heard.” By scheduling a hearing Wednesday on legislation to give certain terminally ill patients the legal option to end their lives with a doctor’s prescription, the Committee on Public Health gave its House members a June 1 deadline to decide how to handle the controversial matter.

The issue of physician-assisted death has lingered on Beacon Hill for years and advocates have hailed recent progress as the legislation has scored favorable reports from the Public Health Committee each of the last three sessions (after five straight terms of meeting an early dead end) and for the first time got a favorable report from the Health Care Financing Committee last term. Recent polls have shown support for the idea among Bay State adults, and proponents said Wednesday they’re heartened by the early hearing this time around.

“I’ll be brief, because I’ve testified in support of this bill on multiple occasions,” Sen. Dylan Fernandes said. He added, “It’d be great to be able to get this bill done. And I’m so encouraged by this committee holding this hearing so early in the session.”

The legislation (H 2505 / S 1486) filed by Rep. James O’Day of West Boylston and Sen. Jo Comerford of Northampton would allow mentally-sound adults with a prognosis of six months or less left to live to “voluntarily make an oral request for medical aid in dying and a prescription for medication that the patient can choose to self-administer to bring about a peaceful death.”

It has been cosponsored by 22 senators, a majority of that branch, and by 52 representatives in the 160-seat House, Comerford said.

Sen. William Brownsberger testified in support of the measure Wednesday, saying that his thoughts on it were shaped by the perspective his father, a psychiatrist who spent years working in hospice.

“This bill is really about people being able to live out their last days without fear of suffering. It gives them the option to break the glass and exit if the pain associated with their terminal illness becomes too extreme. Most of the time, they’re not going to exercise it. But knowing that they have that option, in his view, really allows them to endure those last days without fear,” Brownsberger said. “The fear is not of death, the fear is of suffering. And this gives them a way to know, ‘I’m not going to have to suffer if I have a way out.’”

A University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB poll released in June found that 44% of Bay Staters strongly support so-called physician-assisted death while another 23% said they somewhat support the idea. Eleven percent were somewhat or strongly opposed and 22% said they neither support nor oppose it.

Massachusetts voters spoke directly to the issue in 2012, when they rejected a ballot question with 51% opposed and 49% in favor, a margin of 67,891 votes. Gov. Maura Healey has voiced support for the concept of medical aid in dying with proper guardrails in place.

The topic has generated lengthy, emotional hearings at the State House. Opponents, including some disability advocacy groups, argue that allowing medical aid in dying could expose patients to coercion and abuse.

Disability advocacy groups warn of a slippery slope — arguing that authorizing assisted death for terminally-ill patients is an incremental step toward making non-terminal disabled people eligible as has happened in Canada and parts of Europe.

Kris Correira of Charlton, who said she has been a physician assistant in Worcester for over 30 years, testified in opposition to the bill Wednesday. She said it was the fourth time she presented testimony on the issue to the Public Health Committee.

“Safeguards have already been removed and more legal challenges aim at expanding the law. Waiting periods, terminal illness, self-ingestion: these [requirements] will all be gone in due time,” Correira said. She added, “Legalization is only the beginning. Anyone assuring us the law is safe is misleading us, unfamiliar with the trajectory of [medical aid in dying] everywhere else. ... Predicting death in six months is about as accurate as flipping a coin. This is why a lot of people remain on hospice beyond six months.”

Comerford contended that the bill she and O’Day filed (they are identical) is “known as the strongest, by far, hands down, bill in the nation” and she described the litany of steps a person would have to go through before being able to end their life.

To be prescribed a fatal dose of medication, a person would need to make an oral request to their attending physician (if that physician chooses to participate in medical aid in dying prescribing) and also a written request in the presence of two witnesses. One of those witnesses would have to be someone who is not related to the terminally-ill patient, who is not financially responsible for the patient, and who is not entitled to any portion of the patient’s estate upon death at the time of the request.

The attending physician would then have to certify that the patient is a resident of Massachusetts, is terminally ill, is mentally capable to make the request for a fatal dose, and has voluntarily made the required oral and written requests for medical aid in dying. They would also need to refer the patient to a consulting physician to medically confirm the diagnosis and prognosis and to determine that the patient is mentally capable and acting voluntarily. They also have to refer the patient to counseling to review for psychiatric or psychological disorders or depression causing impaired judgement.

The attending physician must offer the patient an opportunity to rescind their request for the medication before it is prescribed, talk with the patient about treatment alternatives, and must also counsel the patient about having another person present when self-administering the fatal dose and about only doing so in a private place.

The bill also contains language that seeks to frame how deaths that take place as a result of any aid in dying law are viewed in other contexts.

It declares that medical aid-in-dying deaths “shall not constitute suicide or have an effect upon any life, health or accident insurance or annuity policy,” and that any “person, health care provider or health care entity shall not be subject to criminal liability, licensing sanctions or other professional disciplinary action” for actions taken in good-faith compliance with the law. It also forbids the state from referring to the practice “as suicide or assisted suicide.”