Image by Stan Shebs, via Wikipedia.
Today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “The World House”
Recently I went to visit a friend whom I knew would be dying soon. She had failing health and failed eyesight. I arrived with two goals in mind, but left with a third.
Earlier this year I attended my 65th high school reunion. It was that long ago—2/3 of a century—that I pledged to work in the field of human overpopulation. I also had a realization in high school about myself: I don’t like and don’t understand politics. I appreciate the necessity for politics, but I vowed to remain unsullied by never running for office. That vow was broken only once—long ago when I ran for the Durango School Board. Fortunately, I lost.
Most of my professional work was at the beginning of life. I have enjoyed helping families bear healthy children, and helping them to avoid bearing children when that was their choice. However, I am ending my medical career at the other end of the lifespan, with Medical Aid In Dying (MAID).
Is this MAID work in response to my concern about overpopulation? No, it is not. It is in response to my own aging, and a desire to have some control over my own death. It is also a response to an image from my internship that I cannot get out of my mind.
Mrs. Jones was too young to be dying of cancer. She was in her late 40s, as I remember, but she looked to be much older. She had had breast cancer that had spread throughout her emaciated body. This was 1970 and doctors didn’t know much about the care of people with terminal disease. Mrs. Jones was in constant pain which was only partly controlled by periodic injections of morphine. We now have hospice care which can help keep people comfortable in the last chapters of their lives.
I have battled one potentially fatal illness—bladder cancer—and won. Who knows what the future holds for my health, and I would like to be able to have control over my own death if living becomes unbearable.
If you read the Herald’s beautiful editorial on July 20th, you already know about Salye Stein’s death. This editorial was written by her daughter, Ellen Stein, the Herald’s Opinion Editor.
Fortunately, there are many safeguards in the Colorado MAID law, which requires that a person fulfill several requirements before they can get medication for MAID. They must be likely to die of natural causes in the next 6 months. They must be mentally competent, and able to drink the medication. Two physicians are needed to certify these conditions; I was one of those who attested this for Salye.
Many people get the MAID medication and keep it in their refrigerator, but never take it.
My official visit was a few weeks before her death. I returned a few days before the planned death for two reasons: to be certain that she realized that she could change her mind, if she wished, and to say good-bye to my friend. However, Salye reminded me of my responsibility to my values and my country, and I left her apartment with a third motivation.
Salye was distraught over the condition of democracy in the USA. She made me realize that I need to be more active politically to be a good citizen and to protect this country’s democracy. Since then I have taken several steps to do my civic duty.
©?Richard Grossman MD, 2026