When Dr.Jack Kevorkikan left prison, reporters surveyed the politics of end-of-life decisions and decided nothing had changed during his eight years behind bars.

So it seems. Oregon is still the only state where a dying patient can openly and legally receive life-ending medication from her doctor and self-administer it if and when suffering becomes unbearable. In every other state Compassion & Choices makes covert aid in dying as safe and accessible as possible for our clients, and merciful doctors still assist dying in clandestine ways.

Though lawmakers have been slow in advancing public policy, tremendous leaps in knowledge and understanding have been made. Data sets emerging from Oregon's aid-in-dying experience are nothing less than revolutionary. Revealed truths about rational public policy and responsible aid-in-dying practice include:

* Given the free choice to aid their dying, very few patients (about 1 in 800)
exercise it.

* Neither access to care nor financial considerations impact their decision.

* The chief benefits of decriminalizing the practice are easing of fear, increasing hospice and pain care and delivering peace of mind to all dying patients.

* Regulating aid in dying as a legitimate end-of-life option reduces its frequency to about 25 percent of the covert practice that exists in states where it remains illegal.

The only way to protect patients, families and doctors and enforce safeguards is through legislation such as Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. Remormers see Kevorkian as the poster boy for why laws are needed. He is a potent symbol, an object lesson in the desperate lengths people will go to when they face a tragic dilemma and the law ignores their plight.

Experience shows that decriminalization of aid in dying allows terminally ill patients to die at peace surrounded by loved ones: Not alone and desperate, not by violent means and not under an unpredictable, hidden practice.

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Compassion and Choices Magazine summer 2007 issue.