Matt died on January 21, and while I miss him more than words can describe, I am grateful he had the option to end his suffering. Matt loved life, and at only 52, he didn’t want to die. But after he went through nearly a decade of chemotherapy, radiation, hospitalizations and surgeries in a valiant attempt to cure the skin cancer that had spread to his brain, bones and lymph nodes, it was a blessing to give him the option to be at home and to take the medication to pass peacefully.
Seeing what a difference medical aid in dying made for Matt, and the needless suffering it saved him, my hope is that this option is available to others as well. Unfortunately, for millions of Americans who depend on federally funded insurance and medical facilities, medical aid in dying is financially inaccessible, in large part due to a decades-old law that bans the use of federal funds to pay for this end-of-life care option.
But for millions of Americans who depend on federally funded insurance (e.g., Medicare, Tricare) and medical facilities (e.g., Veterans Affairs facilities), medical aid in dying is inaccessible.
Luckily for Matt, generous friends helped us pay our $2,100 out-of- pocket expenses for medical aid in dying, including $1,400 for doctor visits required to ensure Matt met the law’s stringent, multistep criteria and $700 for the aid-in-dying medication.
But not everyone is so lucky, and medical aid in dying shouldn’t be available for only a select few. Congress has an ethical and moral duty to right this injustice — especially for terminally ill veterans who risked their lives to defend our country and deserve a peaceful death — by repealing the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act.
Having the medical aid in dying for Matt saved him so much more suffering. He had already suffered so much.
Matt’s amazing friend Jason Vazquez, an intensive care unit nurse who served with him in the Gulf War, aptly said to him near the end of his life: “Matt, there’s just something better than this.”
Letting someone suffer, as Matt did, is morally wrong. Having seen Matt’s suffering firsthand, I think that to make someone continue to live in such a tortured state is also ethically wrong, and if there’s an option to ease that suffering, it’s what the person deserves.
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