Compassion & Choices Magazine: Winter 2026

I was young when my grandmother died, but I can still recall the dim lamplight as I said my goodbyes.

It would be another 30 years before I would learn that her attending physician was Dr. Peter Rasmussen, the first prescriber of medical aid in dying in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. 

I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Rasmussen early in my career at Compassion & Choices and thank him for the excellent palliative care he provided my grandmother before she passed. When we met, Dr. Rasmussen was living with a malignant brain tumor, and not long after, he used the law he had championed in Oregon to die on his own terms. 

The thread that ties my grandmother to Dr. Rasmussen and our work at Compassion & Choices is also the theme of this issue of our magazine: You deserve the freedom to shape both your living and your dying according to your deepest values.  

In these pages, you can read about how medical aid in dying is part of the full picture of a gold standard of compassionate, ethical and evidence-based care, with state aid-in-dying laws being correlated with higher hospice utilization, earlier end-of-life discussions, and greater patient satisfaction.

And while medical aid in dying may be for a small group of people, there are many other ways to have the end-of-life experience you want. 

Gold-standard care also looks like having access to quality hospice and palliative care, care support for people living with disabilities, patient-directed care and planning, patients truly understanding their healthcare options, and so much more. In this issue, we’re also answering some of your most commonly asked questions about this work.

Achieving this standard of care across the United States requires systemic and cultural change. Change that requires collective action. 

That’s what our movement is about. Read on to learn how we’re doing it, together.

With gratitude,