Hawaii’s Our Care, Our Choice Law Goes in to Effect

On the first day of the new year, Hawaii became the seventh state in the country to allow terminally ill patients to be prescribe medication to end their own lives.

The law requires the patient to have two diagnoses from independent physicians stating that they have six months or less to live and also must undergo psychological counseling. Scott Foster of the Hawaii Death with Dignity Society says, “Having that medication right there knowing that if they need it that’s there. That is what relieves people to no end.”

But the new law is still controversial, with many doctors and pharmacists believing that it violates the Hippocratic Oath. “It’s really not physician-assisted suicide, it’s doctors writing a prescription to a legal dose of medicine to the kill the patient,” said attorney James Hochberg, president of the Hawaii Family Advocates.

See Rick Daysog, Hawaii Now Allows Terminally Ill Patients to Take Their Own Lives with Prescription Drugs, January 1, 2019.