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Since Oregon legalized physician assisted suicide in the Death with Dignity Act of 1997. Support for the legalization of physician assisted suicide has picked up in steady steam across America as more and more states start to draft and vote on legislation that will legalize it.

Currently there are 7 states and the District of Columbia in which PAS is legal.

If America keeps at its current trajectory, one day PAS may be legal nationwide.

With its legalization comes relief to those terminally ill patients whom palliative and hospice care do not do enough to relieve both their physical and/or mental pain.

DO NOT leave the responsibility of creating change to others.

Be that voice in your town hall meetings, in your representative’s ear, and in your social groups.

Speak up for those too frail or fearful to do so themselves. With your voice, change CAN happen.

Even if you disagree

Physician assisted suicide for moral or other reasons you should still allow physician assisted suicide to become legalized.

No one is forced to take part in PAS, neither the patient or the physician and if states continue to use Oregon as a template.

The strict procedures set out help lessen the chances of abuse.

Physician assisted suicide may represent to them a means to still hold onto some form on control in their final days.

The thought that, they still hold the reins and have some control; a choice of how they will live and end their life. This sense of control is reassuring to them in their remaining time on this Earth.

To take away this form of comfort is cruel, not only to the terminally ill patient, but to their loved ones as well.

Given the choice, most people would rather the last moments of their loved ones be that of mental alertness and warmth than have it be of months of seeing them decline.

Image courtesy of Death with Dignity National Center

If your state has yet to legalize physician assisted suicide please click HERE to write a letter to your Member of Congress!