Christy Davis Jackson

Early this month, Compassion & Choices formally endorsed legislation introduced by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to improve end-of-life care, an especially challenging goal during the COVID-19 crisis. More than a dozen other healthcare groups also endorsed the bill.

Said Blumenthal of the proposed legislation: “This bill will help Americans have the difficult but necessary conversations about end-of-life care. The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded Americans of all ages of the importance to have a plan in place in case of severe illness or death. By promoting end-of-life care through public awareness, expanding telehealth services and working with physicians, we can ensure that not one more person is robbed of making critical life-or-death decisions for themselves during this pandemic and beyond.”

“The coronavirus pandemic underscores the need to improve our advance care planning policies so that doctors and families are not put in the devastating position of having to make uninformed life-altering care decisions,” said President and CEO Kim Callinan. “We will work with Senator Blumenthal to secure congressional support to pass this crucial legislation, which would increase the likelihood that patient preferences, not provider bias, determine the care one receives at life’s end.”

“Passing this bill is important because many people nearing the end-of-life are not physically, mentally, or cognitively able to make their own decisions about care,” said Callinan. “Only about one in three of the nation’s adults have completed an advance directive, leaving too many physicians and family members in the midst of this pandemic to make last-minute, agonizing, life-and-death decisions for an individual.”

The legislation would improve end-of-life care by modernizing advance care planning, expanding the use of advance directives and extending the use of telehealth. Learn more about the Compassionate Care Act from the full text of the legislation or the summary version.

At the state level, last month Compassion & Choices gathered sponsors and supporters of Massachusetts’ End of Life Options Act for a Zoom rally to urge lawmakers to use the post-election session to enact the legislation into law this year. 

“COVID-19 has exposed the fragility of life, the tragedy of loved ones dying alone, in a hospital or nursing home, without the care and comfort of loved ones and the limits of modern medicine to relieve suffering especially at the end of life,” said Kim Callinan at the rally. “We urge state lawmakers to pass this bill in 2020 so terminally ill state residents have the option to die peacefully, at home, surrounded by their loved ones.”

Numerous supporters shared their personal experiences during the event, including Westborough dental hygienist Amanda Baudanza, whose husband, TJ, was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at age 28. ”TJ endured weeks of unnecessary suffering and spent his final days in excruciating unbearable pain. I made a promise that I would continue to fight for this legislation and try and get it passed so that others don’t have to suffer the way he did. We have to get this passed before the end of the session.”

Regina Mestre, a registered nurse who cares for terminally ill patients and supports medical aid in dying, shared: “Patients and their loved ones often turn to nurses for information and guidance about end-of-life care. Unfortunately, during this time of pandemic, many patients are in our hospitals and nursing homes without family members for comfort. We see firsthand the fragility of life and sometimes the limits of modern medicine to relieve suffering. As a nurse and a woman of color, I urge members of the legislator to vote on this bill today.”

“As a person of faith,” said Elias Lieberman of the Falmouth Jewish Congregation, a former hospice chaplain. “I respect the fact that others may have deeply held beliefs rooted in their faith traditions about suffering and end of life choices, They would be free under the End of Life Options Act to make choices in keeping with their beliefs. But no one’s belief should override the choices of others when it comes to the most fundamental and meaningful decisions about what we must endure if we are terminally ill and experiencing unbearable suffering.”

“‘Let’s put up the vote. Let’s act now,’” said Christy Davis Jackson, a member of Compassion & Choices African American Leadership Council and an attorney in New Jersey, where medical aid in dying was authorized in 2019. “Medical aid in dying should be a choice available, especially to our brown communities everywhere. Massachusetts has the opportunity to be a leader in this realm.”

According to a poll published in September, seven out of 10 Massachusetts residents support the End of Life Options Act. The Joint Committee on Public Health approved the bill in June for consideration by the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing for the first time since the original legislation was introduced by Rep. Kafka in 2011. The End of Life Options Act has 88 cosponsors, including the lead sponsors in the House and Senate, Representative Louis L. Kafka and Senate President Pro Tempore Will Brownsberger, both of whom participated in the Zoom rally.

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