Director’s Blog

DIRECTOR’S BLOG

This page contains links to various writings of the Director, mostly related to medical aid in dying (MAiD). Comments can be sent to tmirer@deathwithdignityalbany.org

The New York MAiD Bill

★ A Proposal to Improve the Medical Aid in Dying Act: Let’s Restore the Original Definition of Self Determination, September 15, 2024, available as a pdf file HERE.

This paper updates and expands a private memo from September 2023, which made the same proposal. The introductory/summary paragraph presents the basic idea:

New York’s proposed Medical Aid in Dying Act should be improved by abandoning the new definition of self-administration that appeared in 2021 and restoring the original definition that was first introduced in 2016. The new definition restricts the method of administration to be ingestion only. As a result, qualified persons who cannot ingest the medication could not benefit from the law. Restoring the original, unrestrictive, definition would open the door for these persons to receive medical aid in dying.

A compassionate and reasonable proposal!

MAiD in General

○ Pain and Suffering as Reasons for Requesting MAiD in Oregon, October 16, 2024, available as a pdf file HERE.

Why do people request medical aid in dying? The annual reports from the Oregon Health Authority give a one-sentence summary of the data it collects each year, such as this one for 2023: “As in previous years, the three most frequently reported end-of-life concerns were loss of autonomy (92%), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (88%), and loss of dignity (64%).” One might wonder, “What about pain and suffering?”

The Oregon reports’ summaries are frequently cited, perhaps because they seem to be authoritative and to be based on the best available data. However, the data and reports may not mean what advocates and analysts presume they do. This paper explains how the Oregon data are collected, summarized, and reported. The paper is written for anyone who uses the reports or wants to know what they mean, and (of necessity) the paper is full of arcane details.

★ Unrestrictive Self-Administration in MAiD Laws, December 15, 2024, available as a pdf file HERE.

The MAiD laws in Hawaii, New Jersey, and Vermont place no restriction on the methods of self-administration of medication that may be used pursuant to the law. These laws contrast with those in other states that require that the medication must be ingested.

Ingestion-only requirements are barriers to access, which hark back to the earliest days in the development of MAiD in Oregon, 30 years ago. What was path-breaking then now stands in the way of realizing the full potential of medical aid in dying. Instead of looking backward, states should look forward.

The core of this paper revises and expands material in the Proposal to improve the bill for a law in New York (see above).

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