Life, liberty and the right to die: Column

• Momentum is building for the %22Death with Dignity%22 movement to enable the medical aid in dying.
• Lawmakers are resisting the anti-aid-in-dying lobby and responding to the views of their constituents.
• We all expect to live with dignity. And we all deserve to die with dignity%2C too.

Civil and human rights movements often build slowly and then appear to gain acceptance suddenly when support reaches a tipping point. Marriage equality has followed this path.

Now momentum is building for the Death with Dignity movement to enable the medical practice of aid in dying.

In 1994, 51% of Oregon voters approved a ballot measure I co-authored. Oregon's Death with Dignity Act was the nation's first to set out guidelines and safeguards for mentally competent, terminally ill patients to obtain a prescription for medication to end their life in a humane and dignified manner. Three years later, 60% of Oregon voters rejected the legislature's attempt to rescind the law.

It was 14 years before a second state approved a similar law. In 2008, 59% of Washington voters voted to follow Oregon's lead.

Just over one year later, Montana became the third state where qualified patients may obtain medication for peaceful dying. The Montana Supreme Court ruled in Compassion & Choices' landmark case Baxter v. Montana, that medical aid in dying follows Montana public policy on patient decision-making. Three months later, a Binder Research poll showed Montana voters favored "allowing dying patients in severe distress to make their own end-of-life choice to receive a prescription for life-ending medication" by a 36-point margin (60% support vs. 24% oppose). This strong support included Republican voters by an 18-point margin (53% vs. 35%).

Buried by the 2012 presidential election coverage was the narrow defeat (51%/49%) of a Massachusetts Death with Dignity initiative. Aid-in-dying opponents won by outspending supporters nearly 5-1 in a misinformation ad blitz during the campaign's final days. Opponents may have won that battle – but they are losing the war. Today support for aid-in-dying legislation is growing.

In February, the New Jersey Assembly Health & Human Services Committee approved its own Death with Dignity bill by a 7-2 vote.

One week later, the Vermont Senate approved an aid-in-dying bill. If the Vermont House passes a bill as expected, the governor has pledged to sign it.

Last month the Montana House, in a fierce fight to buck the trend and gut the Baxter v. Montana decision, approved a bill to imprison doctors up to 10 years for providing aid-in-dying. Widely seen as a harsh government intrusion, most Montanans oppose the bill.

Lawmakers are resisting the anti-aid-in-dying lobby and responding to the views of their constituents. National and state polls consistently show most people want government to allow patients who suffer in their dying to have choices. A national poll last year by Republican pollster Frank Luntz showed 84% agree that: "How a terminally ill person chooses to end his/her life should be an individual decision and not a government decision."

Some question the need for aid-in-dying laws, since few people (1 in 500) in Oregon die with prescribed medication. But many more (1 in 6) consider the option and many complete the eligibility process and never ingest the medication. Thousands achieve comfort and peace of mind knowing they have choices. Fifteen years of experience since the Oregon aid-in-dying law took effect in 1998 reveals no evidence of abuse, coercion or negative impact on hospice care. Aid in dying is only for people dying of cancer, ALS or other fatal illness and is entirely voluntary for both patients and physicians.

As a nurse and physician assistant for 25 years, I treated terminally ill patients and heard their pleas. Patients need support for their values and choices. Doctors need assurance the law allows them to honor their patients' wishes.

We all expect to live with dignity. And we all deserve to die with dignity, too.

Barbara Coombs Lee is president of the end-of-life choice advocacy and support group, Compassion & Choices, and was a Chief Petitioner of the first-in-the nation Oregon Death with Dignity Act.