Last month, former House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., voted against a bill in committee that would overturn the District of Columbia’s Death with Dignity Act that authorizes medical aid in dying as an option for terminally ill adults to end unbearable suffering. Yet, Rep. Issa said he opposed medical aid-in-dying laws, including Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act, and urged Congress to develop additional “national safeguards” for these laws.

To the untrained ear, Issa’s proposal may sound reasonable. That may explain why no media outlet that covered the committee vote cited his remarks. But their meaning was clear to anyone who supports laws authorizing terminally ill adults to have the option to get a doctor’s prescription for medication they can take to die peacefully if their suffering becomes intolerable. When opponents of medical aid in dying talk about creating national safeguards, that is code for crafting regulatory roadblocks to deny terminally ill adults access to this end-of-life option.

The D.C. legislation catapulted medical aid in dying onto the federal agenda at a time when Congress may have the will to criminalize the practice. Although similar efforts failed in 1997 and 2000, syndicated National Review columnist Wesley Smith called on current House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, whose committee approved the D.C. nullification bill, to introduce a bill making medical aid in dying a federal crime. Such legislation would invalidate laws in Colorado, the District of Columbia, California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. These seven jurisdictions comprise 18 percent of our nation’s population.

Relief from federal meddling might lie with the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the president’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver, is an active opponent of medical aid in dying. His 2006 book on the issue voices strong opposition and outlines specific legal theories for the Supreme Court to invalidate medical aid-in-dying laws, with or without action by Congress. He proactively invites a federal challenge: “…the Court’s decisions seem to assure that the debate…is not yet over — and may have only begun.”

Judge Gorsuch repeatedly dodged opportunities to renounce his opposition to medical aid in dying during his confirmation hearings this week.

Heavy-handed federal action, either by Congress or the judiciary, would also halt consideration of medical aid in dying in 24 states where such legislation has been introduced since January.

A federal ban would deprive lawmakers of the ability to regulate the practice in their jurisdictions and prevent their terminally ill residents from getting the comfort and peace of mind medical aid in dying provides because they have the option of ending agonizing suffering.

A national ban on medical aid in dying would set end-of-life autonomy and self-determination back to the last century. Those who support medical aid in dying must direct energy and resources to ensure that Congress and our nation’s highest court do not reverse hard-won progress toward compassion and dignity at life’s end.

No judge or lawmaker should mandate suffering or dictate how terminally ill adults must die.

Barbara Coombs Lee is president of Compassion & Choices, which is headquartered in Denver. She co-authored the 1994 Oregon Death with Dignity Act that is the model for Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act.

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