MarketWatch journalist Meera Jagannathan interviewed Lisa Vigil Schattinger for an article about the price of the medications prescribed for the terminally ill to hasten their death under death with dignity laws. Vigil Schattinger was honored to share Jack’s story alongside those of other loved ones who used Oregon and California’s laws. Jack was a retired neurologist and was an outspoken advocate for medical aid in dying for the terminally ill in the medical community.
A new Maine law will allow terminally ill people to obtain prescription medications to end their lives
Rick Miller developed trouble breathing and a persistent cough in early 1999, and later learned he had small-cell lung cancer. Among the first words he uttered after receiving his diagnosis, according to his wife, Nora Miller, were, “I’m definitely going to use the Oregon law.”
He meant Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, enacted in 1997 to allow terminally ill patients self-administer lethal prescription medication to end their lives. Rick Miller, 52, tried experimental chemotherapy treatments that summer to no avail, and additional treatments in the following months, but his condition continued to deteriorate.