Michael N. Oser
Attorney at law
Upper Arlington, Ohio
October 31, 2025
There is a special kindred spirit among those who live with a terminal illness — people who know that time is precious, pain is real, and peace is a gift.
Medical aid in dying is not about giving up. It is about choosing how to say good-bye. For me, that means leaving this world in a calm and dignified way, surrounded by love rather than fear.
It is an act of grace — both for me and those I leave behind.
We speak often about compassion in health care. True compassion is not only in curing but in caring, in allowing each one of us to decide when our journey should end with peace and not with suffering.
As Ohio debates this issue, I hope everyone listens with gentleness and understanding. We are all travelers on the same path, and one day you may hope for that same mercy.
Lisa Vigil Schattinger
October 24, 2025
As an advocate for Medical Aid In Dying, or MAID, I was encouraged to see the University of Toledo take on this critical issue during its Oct. 8 debate, “The Right to Die? A debate on physician-assisted suicide in Ohio,” hosted by the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership. The event brought the conversation home for many in northwest Ohio. Unfortunately, it also risked adding confusion rather than clarity by framing MAID in global and abstract terms, with little recognition of the careful safeguards that have guided its use for decades in 12 U.S. jurisdictions.
As part of the debate, Dr. Charles Carmody, a theologian, shared that his father died on July 31 while in hospice care. He said, “I personally put tons of morphine into his mouth as he was dying, and it sped up his death. There’s absolutely no question that it sped up his death. But I was not aiming at his death. I was not trying to speed up his death.” He said that his father was at home, surrounded by his pets and his wife and his family and that it was a beautiful experience.
Compare this to my experience with my stepfather, who lived in Oregon.
He was enrolled in hospice and on a sunny day, surrounded by my mother and our family, he decided to take a previously prescribed medication to die peacefully, exactly as he wished. it was a beautiful experience. Oregon has allowed MAID since 1997.
In both cases, our respective families were able to share a loved one’s final moments and know that they died in peace and comfort.
Supporting a loved one through the final months of life always brings enormous challenges — how best to respect the person’s wishes and how best to prevent or relieve intolerable suffering.
Because Oregon allows MAID, our family was able to both help relieve the increasing symptoms of my stepfather’s cancer alongside hospice and honor his wishes to decide when he’d had enough.
Ohioans currently do not have this option.
I realize that in order to allow
Ohioans to access Medical Aid In Dying, a policy must be created with safeguards that effectively balance allowing the practice while also ensuring it is not abused.
Thankfully, thoughtful people in those U.S. jurisdictions authorizing MAID already have created such laws that can be models for Ohio. These safeguards include the following:
An adult must be terminally ill and have six months or less to live, as confirmed by two physicians. They must be capable of making informed decisions and able to take medication independently. Only the patient can make the request, go through the steps to qualify, and then decide if and when they take the medication.
While some would like to see laws allowing MAID to be authorized through an advance directive, that is not allowed. And further, disability, advanced age, and dementia alone are not terminal illnesses and thus not qualifying conditions.
It’s important to point out that hospice and MAID are compatible forms of care.
Overall, more than 90 percent of those who died by MAID in Oregon, the state with the longest-standing law, and California, the state with the largest population, were enrolled in hospice and receiving end of life care. As a comparison with the general population, the last available data shows that in 2022, only 49 percent of Medicare-covered Oregonians and 44 percent of Californians on Medicare received hospice care at the end of their lives.
As Dr. Carmody noted, people want to die at home, and about 90 percent in Oregon and California who used MAID died at home.
Ohioans also should be allowed access to MAID.
It can be provided via policies that are already in place in other states for decades and have been shown to prevent abuse. Ohioans are independent thinkers and should be able to decide for themselves if this option is important to them.
Please join me in asking Ohio lawmakers to support a law authorizing Medical Aid In Dying for the terminally ill.
Lisa Vigil Schattinger, of Cleveland, is a former nurse who now serves as executive director of Ohio End of Life options, a statewide grassroots movement to bring Medical Aid In Dying to Ohio.
Jim O’Neil
November 5, 2025
I watched the Oct. 8 debate, “The Right to Die?” I also read Ms. Schattinger’s letter to the editor on Oct 25. I will be up front that I actively support the efforts to legalize “Medical Aid in Dying” in Ohio. Today, 12 states/jurisdictions have legalized this, with regulations and procedures that eliminate the chance of abuse. These can be a model for Ohio. I wrote this over five years ago and submitted it to my local paper. I find that it just as relevant now as it was then.
It’s time, Ohio …
I laid my wife to rest Jan. 13, 2020. I watched the cancer eat at her from the inside. My children and I stood vigil with her for two weeks at Hospice of Medina County before her body realized it was time to let go. Watching someone you love with all your heart and soul wither away is not how they should be remembered, but unfortunately, it will stay with me for the rest of my life.
We knew the end was near. Her doctors and oncologist told us her cancer was incurable. She was a fighter, though. We actively sought treatment, and these gave us over a year together which we made the most of. In the end it wore her down. She was tired, tired of needles, tubes, IVs, pain, and nausea. The cancer had totally obstructed her digestive track. She could not eat nor drink by the time she entered hospice on Dec. 23, 2019.
She cried that she could not end her suffering. Bitterly complained that the final kindness she gave our beloved pets was not an option she could choose for herself. If the choice were available, she would have taken it gladly.
I have heard and read the arguments against legalizing this final decision. I fully agree that life is precious, and we should do everything possible to preserve and protect it. I find myself dwelling more on the quality of that life, not necessarily the quantity. Today’s medical technologies can prolong life almost indefinitely, but what kind of life is it? Just because we can do something does not mean we should. It was only in 1991 that the PSDA federal law, or Patient Self-Determination Act, gave us the
right to refuse end of life treatment.
This led to the rise of palliative care organizations, or hospice. Hospice is a wonderful service, and I cannot say enough about the kind and compassionate people who work and volunteer there. I consider the ability to voluntarily end one’s life in these specific situations a logical extension of the PSDA and another tool for hospice patients to choose with appropriate oversight.
Every religion considers the taking of one’s own life a sin, including my own.
I do not know what God has planned for us after death, all I know is that we will all find out. I cannot believe that he is a vindictive God and would punish one of his children for accelerating the time of their meeting by a few days, weeks, or months. “Ohio Right to Life,” an organization I greatly respect that fights for those who cannot speak for themselves, is adamantly against this option. I truly do not understand their position. Their literature and arguments immediately make a leap to warning about forced euthanasia and mercy killing. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is about “choice.” One only the terminally ill can make for themselves, no one else.
I understand that the Hippocratic oath says, “do no harm,” and that many doctors feel this prevents them from supporting this option. Please define “harm,” and to “whom.” Watching my wife in a drug-induced coma from pain medications grimace, groan, and wince in pain at the nurse’s touch was terrible harm in my opinion. Again, this is about choice. If a doctor or other medical professional cannot support this option, I respect that position, and no one is forcing them to do anything against their own moral code.
There are arguments that this option may “possibly” be taken advantage of by the unscrupulous.
However, I do believe that appropriate, common-sense safeguards and checks/balances can be incorporated into the law to prevent abuse. I write this as a final act of kindness for my wife who wished this was available to her. As such, I respectfully ask our state representatives to support appropriate legislation in Ohio. I also ask you to let your state representatives know where you stand.
It is your choice.
Don H. Thompson
Hilliard
November 6, 2025
As 11 other states have already provided enabling legislation for the Medical Aid in Dying option to their constituents, questions linger, such as, why has not Ohio’s General Assembly provided the MAID option to benefit the terminally ill if they meet the criteria?
The answer seems to be that lobbyists influence our Ohio General Assembly representatives more than any compassion for Ohio’s terminally ill citizens. It may also be from some in the General Assembly who are allowing their personal religious beliefs to interfere with acting in their
constituents’ interests.
Are there no members of Ohio’s 136th General Assembly with the political will to introduce and sponsor MAID legislation to benefit their terminally illconstituents and their families? There is much information available about the benefits with the MAID option for Ohio’s terminally ill.
Enabling MAID legislation in Ohio was introduced in 2018. It is clear that a massive constituent letter-writing campaign will be needed to address the inertia within the General Assembly.
I urge your readers to join the growing advocacy for the MAID option and write their respective Ohio legislators to adopt MAID legislation.
Tom Bretz
West Chester
November 9, 2025
After reading the article about Dr. Charles Carmody (“Let Ohioans choose dignity with Medical Aid In Dying,” Oct. 25), I was taken back. Given his perspective about what he did I don’t understand how he can be against a highly regulated procedure that is so much more humane. MAiD (Medical Aid In Dying) is for people who are dying from a medical condition. What is not humane about allowing that person to chose to die peacefully, as part of hospice?
I have had to watch multiple family members suffer through weeks of pain and agony while dying with cancer. It is gut-wrenching. I hope you will open your mind and heart to the compassion of MAiD and present the benefits of MAiD when given the opportunity.