Compassion & Choices Action Network volunteers today praised Maryland lawmakers for holding a hearing on the End-of-Life Option Act (HB 1328) and urged the Legislature to pass the widely supported bill to allow mentally capable, terminally ill adults with 6 months or less to live the option to request, obtain and self-administer medication — should they choose — to die peacefully.
The legislation allows an individual to request and self-ingest prescription medication to peacefully end their suffering if it becomes unbearable.
“Having the option of Medical Aid in Dying could play a pivotal role as I face a cancer that will claim my life,” said Lynn Cave of Silver Spring, whose stage 4 eye cancer has metastasized to her liver. “When pain and suffering are all I have left, I don’t want my disease to choose when I die. I want to make that decision for myself.”
The bill has a wide range of safeguards, including a requirement that an attending physician and a consulting physician each certify that a patient has a prognosis of six months or less to live. The legislation makes it a crime to coerce a terminally ill person into using medical aid in dying.
“More than a dozen volunteers offered passionate and heartfelt testimony this afternoon in support of this important legislation,” said Donna Smith, Compassion & Choices Action Network’s State Director for Maryland. “Another 100 volunteers have announced plans to come to Annapolis for our press conference and Lobby Day tomorrow. We want Maryland lawmakers to know that they cannot wait any longer for this bill to become law. The time for action is now.”
A poll of 811 Maryland voters conducted by Gonzales Research & Media Services in January, 2025 showed that sizable majorities of every demographic group favor legalization. Nearly three out of four Maryland voters (72%) support the End of Life Option Act.
At least seven in 10 voters (71%-77%) in every state region support the bill, as do 73% of Democrats, 78% of Independent voters, 68% of Republicans, 67% of Catholic voters, 68% of Protestant voters, 71% of voters living with a disability, 77% of white voters and 65% of African-American voters and 68% of voters of other races.
The End–of–Life Option Act (The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings and the Honorable Shane E. Pendergrass Act) is named after the retired Maryland Delegate Shane Pendergrass, who championed the legislation from 2015 to 2022, and Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, who endorsed the bill in 2019, just months before his death from cancer. He said: “As a just and compassionate society, we cannot value life in the abstract and deny to those who are about to die the self-determination that they deserve.”
Compassion & Choices is comprised of two organizations that improve care and expand options at life’s end: Compassion & Choices (501(c)(3)) educates, empowers, defends, and advocates; the Compassion & Choices Action Network (501(c)(4)) focuses exclusively on legislation, ballot campaigns, and limited electoral work.
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