Medical Aid in Dying: A difficult, dignified decision

by Roberta Ness

Facing the end with clarity, courage, and care: what you need to know about Medical Aid in Dying.

Welcome as always. Today's special, Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), is a flavor that may bring you satisfaction or may give you heatburn. MAID is one of the most difficult imaginable decisions – like Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) which I’ll discuss in the next blog - it is the choice to end life prematurely. While it’s terrible to have to exercise such a resolve, it’s a way out of interminable physical or existential agony. Even knowing that you have a choice can feel liberating. MAID allows you, if you have a terminal diagnosis to get prescribed drugs, plan goodbyes, and then exit quickly, gracefully, and painlessly. Many call it Death with Dignity.

What is MAID?

Medical Aid in Dying allows terminally ill, mentally capable adults to request medications that will end their life immediately and peacefully. MAID is not suicide – it is a decision by a patient who is suffering, who is already dying, to control the timing of their final days. Because MAID involves addictive, highly regulated prescription drugs, it is only available when legalized. As I write this in mid-2025, only 10 states plus Washington D.C. have passed such laws. I call them the Sunshine states (not because of their weather, because of their humaneness):

Oregon (since 1997), Washington (2009), Montana (2009), Vermont (2013), California (2016), Colorado (2016), District of Columbia (2017), Hawaii (2019), New Jersey (2019), Maine (2019), New Mexico (2021)…