For nine years, David Grube’s patient fought her peritoneal-carcinomatosis, a rare cancer of the stomach lining. She endured a slew of different treatments including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and thermal ablation, a procedure that uses heat to remove certain tissues. “She tried to beat it,” says Grube, a family medicine physician in Oregon and medical director for Compassion & Choices, and advocacy group for medical aid in dying.
By 2019, Grube’s patient was in her 80s and actively dying. With the support of her family, she chose a planned death, which involved a prescription from Grube that would allow her to pass away peacefully.
Currently, nine states, as well as the District of Columbia, allow medical aid in dying. About 20 percent of Americans live in places where medical aid in dying is permitted. At the moment, medical aid in dying is only available to adult patients with a terminal disease and a prognosis of six months or less. Patients must formally request the prescription multiple times from a licensed physician and complete a waiting period between each ask. The patient must be competent at the time the prescription is requested and then ingested, and they must be able to ingest the prescription on their own.
