My husband was smart and athletic, the valedictorian of the College of Business at Valparaiso University and a star on the swim team. He went on to earn a doctorate and he spent 40 years as a professor, teaching courses such as advanced statistics to MBA students. His athleticism remained a constant in his life; he took up scuba-diving, cross-country skiing, and he competed in 50-mile bike races.

He began having terrible back pain that he attributed to the inevitabilities of age and to wear and tear from various sports.

In 2019 we were on vacation in Europe, and he could barely move without excruciating pain. He sought out a pharmacist for advice, an unusual move given his “I can handle it” attitude. The pharmacist’s pills didn’t help.

He refused to cut the trip short, and when we returned home, he saw our family doctor. She diagnosed his condition as muscle strain and gave him exercises to strengthen his back.

He was in almost unendurable pain trying to do the exercises and realized that he had more than muscle strain. He persisted with other doctors and tests. He was eventually diagnosed with advanced multiple myeloma, an incurable form of blood cancer that attacks the bones. His body was disintegrating, and the cancer cells were eating away at his bones, causing them to collapse.

For the next three years, under the care of wonderful physicians at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, he tried every possible option to stop the progression of the disease. He had a stem-cell transplant that was unsuccessful. He tried the five types of chemotherapy available to treat this disease, each one unsuccessful.

Throughout those years he had 17 hospitalizations, many of them under emergency situations. We spent several hundred days in Rochester. He had life-threatening reactions to some of the drugs, including a seizure, and he spent eight days in an ICU, unconscious. He had countless blood transfusions.

He lost six inches in height as his bones kept disintegrating and breaking. He had surgical procedures to inject cement into the “holes” that the cancer created in some of the bones, to try to alleviate the pain.

He took dozens and dozens of pills each day, some to try to kill the cancer, others to deaden the pain, still others to stop the corrosive side effects of the treatments.

In November 2022 he was cleared for a last-ditch effort, a drug trial at Mayo. By the time it was scheduled to begin, however, his doctor took one look at him and admitted him to the hospital for more blood transfusions and other emergency care. A few days later it was determined that he could begin the trial.

When I arrived at the hospital the morning the first treatment was to begin, he said he had decided not to pursue it. He was clear: He had neither the psychological nor the physical stamina.

I wept and accepted the inevitable. We began the process for his transfer from the Mayo hospital directly to hospice.

He and I had talked about death with dignity. He wanted to die when he could determine that the essential human elements of his life were no longer sustainable. His body, once so strong, had crumbled; he and I had become the same height. And all the drugs, for so many years, had affected his once-brilliant mind.

He had continued to teach throughout his illness, with the advantage of remote technology. But teaching tasks that once took 10 minutes now took two hours.

His body and mind were almost gone.

My husband called a physician in another state to ask for aid in dying. Unfortunately, Minnesota laws would criminalize such actions.

And so, for 16 days, despite loving hospice care, my husband was tormented. He wanted to die, yet he had to endure the gradual erosion of his personhood. His despair was beyond my words to describe.

I am the founder and executive director of World Without Genocide, a human rights organization. We support the integrity, dignity, and the right of people to have bodily autonomy. My husband lost that right.

We support the End of Life Option Act in Minnesota, SF 1813/HF 1930. If passed, this would allow Minnesotans access to medical aid in dying, in which a terminally ill, mentally capable adult with a prognosis of six months or less to live, can request, obtain, and take medication — should they choose — to die peacefully in their sleep if their suffering becomes unbearable. This is what my husband wanted — to die with dignity on his own terms.

The bill is modeled after laws in other jurisdictions and the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, which has been in practice for 25 years without a single instance of abuse or coercion.

Provisions of the bill include the following:

• The individual must self-administer the medication.
• Patients are able to access medical aid in dying from health care providers licensed in Minnesota to provide similar medical care, including a doctor of medicine, a doctor of osteopathy, and advanced practice registered nurses.
• The attending health care provider must inform terminally ill adults requesting medical aid in dying about other end-of-life care options including comfort care, hospice care and pain control.
• Two health care providers must confirm that the person is terminally ill with a prognosis of six months or less to live, is mentally capable, and is not being coerced.
• A terminally ill person can withdraw their request for medication, not take the medication once they have it, or otherwise change their mind at any point.
• A mandatory mental health evaluation is mandated if either health care provider has concerns about the patient’s capacity to make an informed health care decision; the prescription can’t be written until the mental health provider confirms capacity.
• Health care providers who participate and comply with the law are given civil and criminal immunity.
• Anyone attempting to coerce a patient will face criminal prosecution.

This is not euthanasia. This is not genocide. This is not exploitation of the weak or vulnerable among us. It is not available for patients with dementia. It is an option for a person capable of giving full consent who is likely suffering from cancer or neuro-degenerative disease to preserve dignity and autonomy until the very end of life.

I promised my husband, in his last days, that I would advocate for this bill. Please stand with me to honor his final request and to provide this option for final dignity to others.

Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., is executive director of World Without Genocide at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, St. Paul, and representative of World Without Genocide to the United Nations Department of Global Communications.