When someone is given a terminal diagnosis and told they have less than six months to live, the most personal question they face is not if they will die — it's how. In Ohio, that choice is currently not theirs to make. The Ohio Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) Act would change that.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Eric Synenberg (D-Beachwood), would allow terminally ill Ohio residents to request a prescription for end-of-life medication. Two doctors would have to approve both oral and written requests before any prescription could be filled. This is not a reckless policy — it is a carefully structured, compassionate option that already exists in 13 states and Washington D.C.

Michael Oser, a Columbus lawyer living with a terminal form of cancer, put it plainly: "I want to make that determination of how I die and where I die," he said at a Statehouse press conference. "None of us get out of here alive — the question is not if, it's how."

That is the heart of this bill. It does not force anyone to choose aid in dying. It simply gives terminally ill Ohioans — people already facing the hardest reality imaginable — the legal right to make that choice for themselves, in consultation with their doctors and loved ones.

According to a 2026 analysis by Pew Research Center, six in ten Americans do not morally object to medically assisted suicide. Ohioans deserve the same dignity and autonomy available to residents of Oregon, Colorado, Vermont, and a dozen other states.

We urge the Ohio General Assembly to give the MAID Act a fair hearing and to let terminally ill Ohioans decide how they face the end of their lives.