Patient Access to End of Life Care Act

(1) Medical aid-in-dying is a medical practice in which a mentally capable, terminally ill adult with less than six months to live requests a prescription from their qualified clinician for medication to bring about a peaceful death to ingest at any point if their suffering becomes unbearable.

(2) Medical aid-in-dying, an authorized medical practice, is not euthanasia, mercy killing, or assisted suicide.

(3) Oregon was the first jurisdiction to authorize medical aid-in-dying through a 1994 ballot initiative. Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act was officially implemented in 1997.

(4) Subsequently, Congress passed the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997 which, as Federal lawmakers interpret it, prevents any Federal money from being used to help terminally ill patients who want medical aid-in-dying, such as veterans and other vulnerable populations.

(5) Since then, 11 jurisdictions have adopted medical aid-in-dying laws: California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Montana (via a State Supreme Court ruling), New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington (1 in 5 residents of the United States).