The Maryland End of Life Option Act (HB 0403), The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings and the Honorable Shane E. Pendergrass Act, was introduced on January 18, 2024, and referred to the Health and Government Operations and Judiciary committees. If authorized, this bill would allow a terminally ill, mentally capable adult to request a prescription from their physician that they could take to bring about a peaceful death. A summary of the bill can be found here.
The Senate companion bill (SB 0443) was introduced on January 22, 2024. The hearing will take place on February 8, 2024, at 1:00 p.m. ET.
We are waiting for a hearing date for the House to be announced.
Marylanders deserve the full range of options for care at the end of life – including medical aid in dying, which allows terminally ill adults to get a prescription they can take to end their life peacefully.
Support the movement to bring compassionate end-of-life options to Maryland.
Compassion & Choices is deeply saddened to learn about the passing of Rev. Joseph Kitchen, a Maryland volunteer supporter and activist. Rev. Kitchen served as the president of Young Democrats of Maryland and lent an active voice to progressive politics in the state. During the 2020 Maryland legislative session, Rev. Kitchen, along with faith leaders…
Inspired by his wife’s early involvement with Compassion & Choices and informed by watching both his parents endure difficult deaths, Jim Perdue puts his all into expanding end-of-life options in Maryland.
This is an excerpt from the March 22,2020 edition of the Washington Post. Read the full article. The March 9 editorial “Avoiding unnecessary suffering” endorsed the Maryland End-of-Life Option Act. Contrary to claims by bill opponents, as in the March 13 letter “Maryland should reject assisted suicide,” terminally ill people who request medical aid in…
Since Feb. 9, four newspapers – The Washington Post, The Maryland Independent, The Calvert Recorder, and Frederick News-Post – have endorsed Maryland’s End of Life Option Act (SB 701/HB 643). This compassionate bill would give mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live the option to get prescription medication they could…
Compassion & Choices President/CEO Kim Callinan writes in the Daily Record, “Every year since the Maryland End of Life Option Act was first introduced in 2015, lawmakers have debated and deliberated while terminally ill Marylanders like Marcy Rubin have died unnecessarily suffering. Tragically, Marcy died from metastatic breast cancer last year, just two months after…
Terminally ill Marylanders, family members whose loved ones died in agony, doctors, faith leaders, mental health professionals, and policy makers testified Friday about the urgent need to pass the End of Life Option Act (SB 701/HB 643) before the State Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. The bill, which has 69 sponsors in the Senate (16) and…
Various religious leaders who support Maryland’s medical aid-in-dying bill spoke passionately at a news conference today about how their faith informs their thinking on this peaceful dying option to end unbearable suffering, shared personal experiences showing the need for it, and respond to opponents’ arguments against it. “There is no Biblical doctrine anyone can stand…
I am proud to share the news that our lobby day last Tuesday was a huge success! Compassion & Choices President and CEO Kim Callinan addresses Lobby Day attendees in Annapolis. We had over 185 attendees and 15 legislative sponsors and cosponsors come out to support the Maryland End of Life Option Act. We…
I am proud to share the news that our lobby day last Tuesday was a huge success! Compassion & Choices President and CEO Kim Callinan addresses Lobby Day attendees in Annapolis. We had over 185 attendees and 15 legislative sponsors and cosponsors come out to support the Maryland End of Life Option Act. We…
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