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.

First Published October 24, 2025, 9:00 p.m.
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