Essays

On April 16, 2019, the NC End of Life Option Act was introduced in the NC State House of Represnetives as HB879. Surprisingly, the bill had 2 Democratic primary sponsors (Rep Pricey Harrison and Rep Susan Fisher) and two GOP primary sponsors (Rep Jon Hardister and Rep Chuck McGrady).

In a historic development, a bipartisan group of State Representatives has introduced a bill calling for enactment of Medical Aid in Dying legislation.

In a startling rebuke to opponents of MAID, the state Senate rejected by a surprisingly wide margin 27-22 in the majority GOP upper chamber.

At the annual Orange County Democratic Party convention on Sat, March 30, 2019 in Hillsborough, a resolution calling for enactment of MAID legislation was unanimously adopted. Orange County’s elected officials have consistently been supportive of such efforts, and Rep Graig Meyer and Verla Insko have been primary sponsors of all legislative efforts in the past.

In a stunningly rapid reversal of years of stymied attempts, a bicameral vote of the New Jersey Senate ( by a vote of 21-16) and House (41-33) in passing on Monday, March 25, 2019 the Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act, which Governor Phil Murphy has promised to sign into law.

In an important pronouncement, four respected NC physicians argued in an open letter in the NC Medical Journal that Medical Aid in Dying is currently available in North Carolina, subject to application of the appropriate medical standard of care.

The premier newspaper in North Carolina’s triangle published an op-ed urging support for legislation to enact MAID in NC, similar to the statutory provisions in place in 7 US jurisdictions. (An 8th jurisdiction, Montana, operates under an Open Practice regime relying on physicians applying the appropriate standard of care).

In this weekend’s WSJ Review section (Feb 9-10, 2019; pp C1-C2), author Katy Butler notes the importance of making plans well ahead of time to make sure our passing does not become an undesired ordeal.

We have previously drawn notice to an important law review article [North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 97 Addendum, pp. 1–20 (2019)], in which noted attorney Kathryn Tucker, Director and Founder of the End of Life Liberty Project, posited that even today, in the absence of any statutory language sanctioning Medical Aid in Dying, NC physicians can legally write end of life prescriptions for their terminally ill, mentally competent patients, provided they adhere to the prevailing medical standard of care.

In a pathbreaking law review article published Jan 17, 2019 in the UNC Law Review, Attorney and Hastings School of Law professor Kathryn Tucker, who has brought any number of MAID cases to the US Supreme Court and various State supreme courts, argues that because there is no NC law prohibiting the writing of MAID prescriptions, NC doctors should be able now to write scrips for terminal, competent adult patients, provided they adhere to a prevailing medical standard of care.

Thanksgiving is hardly the time to think of shaking off these mortal coils; it’s a time for celebrating family and friends over a copious meal punctuated by good conversation and memorable stories of the year past.

A recent WaPo article by the daughter of a suicide highlights inadvertently the vital differences between suicide and Medical Aid in Dying.