Thank you, Northwest Herald, for publishing the Daily Herald’s ringing endorsement of Deb’s Law, Illinois’ new Medical Aid In Dying law. As the Daily Herald’s editors note, “We understand where they’re [opponents] coming from, but we also understand the interests of adults facing terminal illnesses who want the right to choose how they spend their final months … It seems only fair and compassionate that they be allowed that.”

The new law is limited to terminally ill, mentally capable adults. Nobody qualifies just because of age or disability. Instead two separate doctors have to agree that you are likely to die within six months and that you know what you’re doing, you’re making an informed choice. And most critically, you have to be able to “self-administer” the needed meds. It’s something you do, not something which is done to you.

Dying comes for us all, often accompanied by immense suffering. Sometimes at the end, suffering is so extreme that we’d rather just go to sleep, we’d rather not stick it out to the bitter end. As Americans, we believe in individual rights and individual liberty, and we should have that right to choose a peaceful death. So thank you, Illinois legislators, for passing the new law, and thank you Gov. Pritzker for signing it. We can all rest a bit easier once the new law goes into effect next September.

Edward Gogol

Crystal Lake