MAID in New Jersey - New Video Features 2 Nurses Disabled by Life-Shortening Diseases Urging Lawmakers to Act

Compassion & Choices today released its second video in a digital video ad campaign featuring passionate advocates of New Jersey’s Aid in Dying for Terminally Ill Act (A1504, S1072) urging the state Assembly and Senate to pass the bill before the end of year. Dec. 17 is the last scheduled voting day for the legislature.

The ads will continue until lawmakers enact the Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act into law. The new video features two sisters who are nurses disabled by life-shortening diseases. They urge New Jerseyans to write their lawmakers in support of the legislation and to bring it to the floor for a vote.

“I've had 18 surgeries. I plan to fight my illness for as long as I can. I enjoy life,” says 61-year-old Clark resident Laurie Wilcox, LPN, who has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for 30 years that has invaded her lung tissue and requires an oxygen tank most of the day to breathe. “At the end stage of my disease, I do not want to suffer through air hunger in the very last days of my life. Please urge New Jersey lawmakers to bring this legislation to the floor for a vote now.”

“I have two small, small grandchildren that I love to death,” says Hamilton Township resident Melissa Wilcox, RN, who suffers from small cell lung cancer, the most deadly of all lung cancers. “I don't want to die, but I'm going to. I'd like to have the opportunity to do it in my own way, at home, with my family and friends around me. I need the lawmakers to act right now because I may not have tomorrow.”

A 2-1 majority (63% vs. 29%) of New Jersey voters, including most Protestants (73%), Catholics (64%) and other non-Protestant residents (59%), support medical aid in dying, according to the most recent state poll on the issue by Rutgers-Eagleton. Major newspapers statewide have endorsed the Aid in Dying for Terminally Ill Act.

“We have the votes now to pass this popular, six year-old bill in the Assembly and Senate,” said Corinne Carey, New Jersey campaign director for Compassion & Choices. “Lawmakers should honor the wishes of the vast majority of their constituents and pass this bill before any more terminally ill New Jerseyans die in needless agony because they did not have this option.”

Medical aid in dying is authorized in Washington, D.C. and 7 states: California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and starting on Jan. 1, in Hawai’i. Collectively, these jurisdictions represent nearly 1 out of 5 Americans (19%) and have 40 years of combined experience safely using this end-of-life care option.