The Washington, D.C., Death With Dignity Act went into effect on June 6, 2017, authorizing the compassionate option of medical aid in dying for terminally ill adults to get a prescription they can take to end their life peacefully. Through our access campaign, Compassion & Choices continues to educate health care providers and residents of Washington, D.C., about medical aid in dying and the full breadth of end-of-life options.
We created a series of PSAs with Diane Rehm and Dr. Omega Silva to explain D.C.’s medical aid-in-dying law.
(Washington, D.C. – June 14, 2018) Compassion & Choices urged Congress to reject a policy rider attached to a government funding bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee late Wednesday night that would repeal the D.C. Death with Dignity Act. The policy rider is part of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill for…
Compassion & Choices urged Congress to reject a policy rider to a government funding bill approved by a House Subcommittee today that would repeal D.C.’s Death with Dignity Act (see policy rider on page 165). The House Financial Services Subcommittee today approved the policy rider as part of the fiscal year 2019 Financial Services and…
Compassion & Choices praised Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for her vow today to prevent congressional opponents of D.C.’s Death with Dignity Act from repealing the law this year, as she did last year. The law gives mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live the option to get a doctor’s prescription…
The following news piece appeared on WUSA9.com on April 6, 2018: It’s been 14 months since DC passed a law to allow terminally ill patients to take their own lives — and not a single patient has been able to use it. Frustrated patients complain regulators have tied up doctors in bureaucratic knots. “I can’t…
The following news piece appeared on NBC 4 Washington on April 6, 2018: Physician-assisted death has been legal in Washington, D.C., since February 2017, but no patients have been prescribed the life-ending drugs, and people who want them say they can’t find doctors to prescribe them. Mary Klein is dying of cancer. She worked with…
The law allows mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live the option to request their doctor write a prescription for medication that they can decide to take to die peacefully in their sleep if their suffering becomes unbearable. Compassion & Choices’ free end-of-life consultation service (800.247.7421) has received 11 requests…
The recently created “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights sets a dangerous precedent for patient access to vital healthcare services, according to a leading advocacy organization. Compassion & Choices submitted the comments to the Federal Register today, the last day of the March…
La recién creada “División de Libertad Religiosa y Conciencia” de la Oficina de Derechos Civiles del Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos de Estados Unidos establece un precedente peligroso para el acceso del paciente a servicios vitales de atención de salud, según una organización de defensa destacada. La organización Compassion & Choices presentó hoy los…
Compassion & Choices thanked congressional leaders for protecting D.C.’s Death with Dignity Act by excluding a House-approved appropriations bill rider to overturn the law from the final omnibus appropriations bill President Trump signed into law this afternoon. Last September, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an appropriations bill (H.R. 3354) that included an amendment by…
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