Education and End-of-Life Options: Hawaii's Our Care, Our Choice Act

摘要

On April 5, 2018, Governor David Ige signed the Hawai‘i Our Care, Our Choice Act. This legislation allows eligible terminally ill adults to request medical aid-in-dying (MAID). MAID is defined as “A safe and trusted medical practice in which a terminally ill, mentally capable adult with a prognosis of six months or less to live may request from his or her doctor a prescription for medication, which she or he can choose to self-administer to bring about a peaceful death.”1 MAID has also been referred to as physician-assisted suicide, or physicianassisted death. On January 1, 2019, Hawai‘i became the eighth US jurisdiction (preceded by California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state, and Washington, D.C) to implement the law authorizing MAID.