My father was a surgeon, recognized by the state of Michigan for 50 years of service to the profession. My brother is a Mayo-trained neurosurgeon. They both dedicated their lives to healing.
In 1991, my mother was dying of lung cancer. Near the end, she was receiving hospice treatment at home. Despite the care and compassion of hospice, a death from cancer is often excruciating. Cancer cells attack and destroy vital organs, making them unable to function. For my mother, who had a big presence and loved to talk and laugh, her lung capacity was disappearing and she could barely speak, even at a whisper.
I remember Dad standing by her bed and watching her struggle as she whispered, “I can’t breathe.” He turned away and said to me, “Better she should go out into traffic and get hit by a car.”
She wanted to die. He wanted her to be able to die. But she lingered in agony for days as the cancer took away one part of her, then another and another.
My father left the practice of medicine in despair after her death. He couldn’t heal her — and he couldn’t help end her life when she was ready.
Last year my husband, Dr. Leigh Lawton, died of multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. When life as he knew it was clearly over, he spent 16 days in torment because in Minnesota, unlike in 10 other states, Washington, D.C., and in 11 countries around the world, it is illegal to provide medical aid in dying.
My husband’s final request was to ask me to support Minnesota’s End-of-Life Options Act, or Medical Aid in Dying (MAID). This bill would enable adults in Minnesota who are medically determined to be mentally competent and terminally ill, with less than six months to live, to self-administer medication and die peacefully in their sleep. The option is not available to those who are disabled who don’t meet the other criteria or who cannot make this decision for themselves.
The proposed Minnesota legislation has safeguards for patients and medical professionals and very specific punishments, including felony charges and up to 25 years’ imprisonment, for those who abuse this practice through coercion, manipulation, or harm. Medical professionals also may choose not to prescribe end-of-life medications and may refer patients to other physicians.
We can choose to have “Do not resuscitate” orders on our medical directives and to empower our loved ones to withdraw life support when further intervention will be futile. We can even end beloved animals’ lives when their situations become intolerable. Medical aid in dying is available to 74 million people in the U.S. and to 300 million people worldwide — but not to people in Minnesota.
Nearly all of the patients choosing Medical Aid in Dying have had cancer, like my mother and my husband, or ALS. Cumulative longitudinal data from the U.S. jurisdictions where medical aid in dying is available show that not a single criminal or civil charge has ever been filed on any substantiated case of abuse or coercion. Not one.
I have already testified for this bill twice this year at committee hearings in the Minnesota House of Representatives. The bill has passed in three House committees but on strictly partisan votes. Since when is death red or blue?
There has been no action in the Senate.
This is the second year of Minnesota’s legislative biennium, meaning that if the bill doesn’t pass this year, it starts over, at zero, in 2025. It has languished at the Capitol since 2015.
Sen. Erin Murphy is the majority leader of the Senate, and she is also one of the authors of this bill. Sen. Melissa Wiklund chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee where the bill must be heard. Please, senators – don’t put this off again and again and again. Legislators tell me that they’ve received more letters and calls urging support on this issue than on any other single bill.
Sen. Murphy office number is 651-296-5931. Sen. Wiklund’s office number is 651-297-8061. Senate File 1813 must be heard in the Senate by a March 22 deadline or it will be another year before it can be considered.
How we die matters.
Ellen J. Kennedy of Edina is executive director of World Without Genocide at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.
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