Why I Support Death with Dignity Laws

The terminally ill should have the right to choose how they die

Let me explain why I support the right of every person to determine their final moments.

I was a journalist for over three decades reporting from all over the world for Reuters until my wife, multi-media artist Mary Klein, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. We had never talked much about dying. There was no need. We had supported each other through fabulous careers and just assumed we would stumble toward death, laughing together all the way, two, grumpy old ladies slowly going to seed.

Mary was fiercely independent, so when she learned at age 66 that cancer had invaded her body and she likely had less than four years left to live, it was a shock. But I was unsurprised by what she said next. She took me by the hand, led me into the living room, sat me down on the sofa and said, “We are going to be brave, we are going to do this well, but when the time comes, I want to take medications to die.”

We had no idea what that would mean. Medical aid in dying (MAID) was not legal in Washington, DC, in 2014. Only Vermont, Washington, Oregon and Montana permitted it in the United States at that time, and Mary refused to leave our home, take our two German Shepherds and move across country. Instead, she endured radical surgery and crippling chemotherapy to extend her life, and she began campaigning for the right to take medications here in our home city. When the Death with Dignity legislation was introduced in 2016, no one expected it to pass. It was Mary’s frank testimony and her humility that persuaded the District of Columbia council to vote 11-2 to enact the law. For two more years, Mary had to fight to prevent Congress from overturning the law, fight the District to implement the law, and then search for months to find two doctors and a pharmacy willing to dispense the medications.

Mary Klein outside the DC government building campaigning for the Death with Dignity law when she had advanced ovarian cancer. Photo courtesy of The Washington Post

My biggest fear was that Mary, wracked with pain, would give up and swallow the motley collection of medications she had begun accumulating – an uncertain option that might fail horribly. Or that she would say before she grew too sick we must fly to a Swiss clinic – how impersonal, how lonely and surely a premature death. But Mary was determined to live every precious moment richly and exuberantly, fully present until the very last. When the pain grew too great, she did not want to be rendered unconscious and linger comatose for days. She wanted to say goodbye and leave in joy.

She succeeded. Chemotherapy no longer working, on heavy doses of fentanyl and morphine, finally she got the medications. Our last moments together were ones of laughter – a true gift. Why should anyone want to deny that peaceful entry into death to others?

Yet Death with Dignity laws are under constant threat. Opponents buoyed by their successes in limiting access to abortion regularly file legal challenges. U.S. House Republicans regularly seek to overturn the DC law. In the latest budget showdown, they have attached a rider to the House budget permanently outlawing Death with Dignity in the nation’s capital.

I respect their differing views and will address their arguments in depth in a coming post. But I ask in return, they respect my views. I believe that each and everyone of us has a right to personal privacy and bodily autonomy when exercise of that right does not impinge upon the personal liberty of others.

Death is intimately personal and falls well within this sphere. Let the terminally ill who want the option of taking medications in their final days die in peace. Thanks to her courage, Mary succeeded.