Our own mortality is hard to think about. It’s an emotional, complex and often painful topic. But in past year, more policymakers, advocates and health care providers have started having difficult conversations on a controversial end of life option.
This option, called aid in dying, is a process by which terminally ill patients meeting certain conditions can request lethal medication to hasten their own death. On January 1, California joined Oregon, Montana, Vermont, and Washington to become the fifth state to legalize the practice, effectively making aid in dying available to one in six Americans.
This new analysis by the Colorado Health Institute offers the national and international context that is essential to understanding the debate.