I want to especially thank you for supporting an independent bookstore like politics and prose. [applause] get ready to click again. And a nonprofit like speedy levin. Your attendance is vital to us and we wouldnt be here without you, so we want you to know how much we appreciate you and your choices. Im excited to introduce because it is no secret among my friends and coworkers how much i love and admire diane ream. Shes a native washingtonian who began her career in 1973 as a volunteer and has grown into the producer, host and dc icon we all know today. Shes the author of several books including finding my voice, on my own, wife and of course the book you are all here for tonight, when my time comes, which addresses the urgent, hotly contested rights of the right to die movement. Through interviews with terminally ill patients and physicians, spouses, relatives and representatives of those who opposed the movement, she gives voice to a broad range of people who are personally linked to the realities of medica medical aidd dying. The book presents an argument for and against that are propelling the debate across the country about whether to adopt a law allowing those to put an end to their suffering. Moderating tonight event is another friendly face. [applause] [cheering] as well as the politics hour. The board of the Public Access corporation of washington, d. C. Since 1997 and has also served on the part of the library of congress center. Before we welcomed the speakers to the stage tonight, we would like to treat you to a short trailer of the documentary that is also called when my time comes that corresponds with the buck what is death . What options do i have as to what the my death will be like . People like you and me have been considering questions like these for as long as thereve been a human being. Today some of us are willing to speak openly about such things, but many of us are not. We are in a culture that seems to hide from mortality. This is the most difficult experience for a patient and their families. Speaking about death and dying is complicated for people and it takes a certain amount of willingness to be vulnerable. These conversations are not actually about buying. They are about the quality of our lives. Everybodys idea is to die quickly in their sleep and not have any existential suffering, but that isnt available to many of us. 25 of people who died with chronic illness died with uncontrollable pain. One of the scariest things is you have no control. But you can control how. Medical aid and dying is a medical treatment that enables a person who is dying and who has ousted all hope for cure and is close to an imminent death to help them die in comfort, with peace and reduced level of suffering. When somebody is thinking about aid and dying they are not thinking about it casually. This is a difficult debate for a lot of people. Some people dont think its appropriate for a doctor to do. I dont know if i would choose it, but i would like to have the choice. This is between an individual and her family have doctor. A good conversation goes a long way. That it is a hard one. Most people would rather not talk about the death. They would rather push it out of their mind. But i believe we must talk about it. For me, thinking about what i would like to have at the end of my life is very important. [applause] now please help me welcome to the stage diane rehm and coach. [applause] good evening. I would like to acknowledge the present of dianes husband, thank you for joining us. Also the presence of the manager of wamu jj. [applause] and wamu Staff Members are also here sprinkled among us, they have the support system that diane and i have come to rely on over the years. We would like to thank them. Would you care to stand. [applause] i have known diane rehm for about 30 years, i knew her before i started work in a wamu, i was hosting a talkshow and diane and i were time to time guest on each other show. And she was one of the people who strongly encouraged me, demanded. Then they come today wamu. In the person that i knew before i came to wamu, i considered a very genteel woman, when i came in 1998 i found that diane was indeed a genteel woman that made a solid steel. Because in that year, 1998 diane started struggling with cosmetic dystonia, which caused her to lose her voice. , you would think that anybody who made a living by talking, stricken with prismatic dystonia would be ending their career, not this woman of steel. She fought it she underwent four years very painful treatment that caused her to be off the air for short periods of time but then she always came back. And she stayed coming back. Until her absence were less and less frequent and they were less and less long, she fought through them. And then her new husband got parkinsons disease. And in this book when my time comes, diane details the pain and suffering he undertook and i assume that experience is what started her on this journey. It turned out i was wrong so diane, start by telling us about your mother. Good evening it is so wonderful to see you all and kojo, thank you so much for being here. My journey began when i was much younger, when i was 19 actually i was 16 when the doctors told me that my mother was dying. The 16yearold does not quite grasp that reality. So i did a lot of praying and a lot of looking to the stars and wondering what is death going to be. Well, for my mother who was 49 when she died and i was 19 it was a great deal of suffering, she begged to die, she begged to die in her hospital bed being drained over and over and over again of fluid caused by were not sure what, whether liver, cancer, cirrhosis of the liver which the doctors all ensured her that it mustve been because she was an alcoholic. And i assure you, she had two drinks a year at christmas and on new years a shot of whiskey with my father. As she lay in the bed, having been drained once again, of fluid that made her look as though she were 11 months pregnant, she begged to die and i can remember rubbing her feet and crying and saying i want to go before you do, i dont want you to die. And then on new years eve of that year, my then husband and i went to Georgetown Hospital at about 10 00 oclock at night before we were supposed to go to a new years eve party, i did not want to go, i did not feel as though i wanted to go but i went. First, to the hospital and when i saw the doctor who was her doctor, i said to him he said, have you seen your mother. And i said, we went into see her but she was sound asleep and i did not want to wake her and he said, i want you to go back in that room, i want you to let her know that you are here. I said but doctor, she does not sleep well, i do not want to wake her. He said go in and wake her. The reels were up on her bed and i said mama, im here. And i think she was so out of it, she kind of waved me away. I think the doctor knew that she was going to die at night and therefore the next day, my husband and i having just moved into a new apartment had no telephone, his brother came knocking on the door saying you must get to the hospital, we raised their and iran across the parking lot, i got there 20 minutes too late. She was gone. And i think kojo, that began my really strong feelings that people should not have to suffer. You say you have a life long advocate a patient on me. , how come . I think, when the doctor told me that my mother was dying, i had gone in to see him, my dad had taken me and i had an ear infection. I could use some pretty choice words, but i will not. Believe me she can. [laughter] she punched through the infection in my ear and i screamed and after i calmed down i said to him, please tell me about my mother and he said she will be gone in 18 months. Just like that. And for me, that harsh way of speaking with a young person about lifeanddeath kind of turned me off to the way doctors assume godlike positions with their patients or the children. I think for me, it has been a lifelong strikeall to make sure that i speak up around doctors and say what is and what is not. And i certainly did. Did your activism on medical aid in dying flow naturally from your feelings on patient autonomy and did johns condition, john reams condition leads you to intensify . John, as kojo said, he died oof parkinsons, he died starvig himself and drinking no liquid for ten days. I watched him do that for ten days. He felt he had lost all dignity, he could no longer feed himself or bathe themselves or toilet himself and he said one day, i am ready to die. Andy called in the doctor a physician himself was on the phone from boston and he said john said im ready to die, doctor will you help me. At a nursing home in maryland, neither legally or morally or ethically can i help you die, the only thing you can do the only thing you can do for yourself is stop eating, drinking water, taking medication. You can go for a long time without food but within a very short period the lack of water destroys the hardens and watched for that ten days as my husband of 54 years declined and showed on his face, though never crying out the agony that that death caused for him. He died in 2014. In january of 2016, a Film Producer and his executive producer diane not in came to me they had plans to do a documentary film on the right to die and joe told me, as readily agreed to do it, before we got to the elevator i said i am in and that was three years ago, we worked together on this documentary film, three minutes of which you had just seen, the book had just come out or comes out tomorrow and that is the result of our effort. The question you asked i will know after you. What is your idea of a good death . It is a question that our director wanted to ask each and every one of the 30 people we interviewed around the country, be they patients or doctors or priests or members of the clergy, what do you consider a good death . For myself i would consider a good death as one that is peaceful, painless, quiet, perhaps having a party beforehand. Having lots of champagne, having my husband, children, grandchildren, my dearest friends beside me, holding hands, telling them each what they mean to me, that would be a good death. In order to make sure that you have autonomy in the process in order to make sure there is no mistake made about your desires, you recruited your grandson been. Tell us what you told been to do. To be shown on Public Television a year from now in the spring of 2021, been was using his cell phone and i had asked his mother for permission to do this. I dont do anything without asking my daughter for her permission. If you had to do anything, not just in ask. Very important with grandchildren and with children to ask permission and jenny granted it. I said been, i would like to speak with you as i was speaking with ben about my own desires, ben was being filmed by director of photography, i told been exactly what i wanted recorded for posterity but most especially for my husband, and grandchildren, i wanted everybody to be aware that if i had either, this is very controversial, if i began showing signs of alzheimers, if i had an incurable illness, if i were diminishing in ways that i could never again enjoy the fullness of life, i wanted to go and i wanted them to know that i would want to go and wanted them to know a paragraph that i had read that and morrow lindbergh read to her children, she had written it, she never actually read it. Her daughter found the paragraph after and moreover lindbergh died and i quote that paragraph in the book because it was so meaningful to me if there is nothing that can be done, please end my life humanely. Please do not use extraordinary measures and please follow my wishes. What i am hoping this book does and documentary does is get people to talk about the most taboo subject, this and dying. We are so afraid to talk about it. We pretend it is not going to happen. In massachusetts, 300 people, please raise your hand if you plan not to die, and there was exactly the same lowlevel chuckle as though we dont think it is kind of funny but some people think, especially young people, think they are going to live forever. John ream and i, because of my family history, my father died 11 months after my mother did. Or mother died at 49 years old. Guest my father died my mother died 11 plate of a broken heart. Johns mother and father each committed suicide. My motherinlaw at 92, my motherinlaw at 72 so this was something that was part of our dialogue and i believe that in this day and age death should be something we all talk about because the baby boomers are reaching the age our parents are dying, and that our children are afraid to talk with us about what we want. Why dont we raise what it is that we want . That is what i hope this book will do, this film will do, to get people talking. The book did it for me, already had wills or living wills and those living wills indicated we do not want to be resuscitated. After reading this book, one has to do more than that, one has to be very very specific about what one wants in that situation and have a conversation with ones Family Member about that and you made been record the conversation so that it will last forever but it is part of diane programming me for the rest of my life. Lets talk about who you talked to the who made that decision, either skeptical or opposing out right, what is close to home for you . Mary klein, who had Ovarian Cancer, they live close to your old neighborhood. They do or did indeed. Mary klein was so active and such in her partners, such a strong marvelous talented person and carried on her life in such a fabulous way, when she discovered she had Ovarian Cancer she did in fact go through numerous treatments, many radiation and chemotherapy treatments until the doctor said there is nothing more we can do and mary, at that time, because there was no right to die, legality in dc, she and her partner went to work with mary j to bring this idea to the 4. As soon as she got elected, she wanted to bring this to before but had been persuaded by other councilmembers to hold off for a bit, but mary became impatient and mary klein became the perfect advocate to come forward to talk about her own illness and did not want to suffer, that she had done everything she could to stay alive, but knew that eventually and shortly she was going to die and did not want to die suffering. She wrote letters and in Columbia City council, voted serve it now dc has a medical aid in dying law. When we began this process in 2016, there were three states at the time, people like mary klein, people like Brittany Minard had to obtain medical aid dying, there are 9 states plus the district of columbia which has medical aid in dying. I feel very fortunate that people like mary klein and mary che made this an issue, i pray that maryland, virginia, new york and other states will follow suit before long. [applause] the district got a medical aid in dying law on the books, Problem Solved for mary klein, right . Then you have to find a physician who is willing to do it, tell that odyssey mary klein looked and looked and looked and finally found a physician who was willing to work with her. She is now my physician. Because she believes in medical aid in dying, i have turned to her, but there are very few physicians. Initially dc said there had to be a registry and you have to list your name as a physician willing to carry out medical aid in dying and very few were willing to put their name out there in public. But now we have a few, very few as the medication is very very difficult to get a hold of the once it was taken off of the market by one of the drug companies. Once taken off the market, a number of pharmacies began to create their own potions and now you have to really find it through a physician. It is not easy. I am hoping that process will become easier as time goes on. Oregon has it in place for 22 years, the number of people applied for medical aid and received the medication, only two thirds of those people have used it. One third had the medication and have chosen not to do it, any sort of coercion or pressure or illegal activity on anyones part. Lets talk about folks who are against it. That is just what i was getting too. In the case of dc legislation, your neighbor for one who lives in the same building you in, she testified in favor and dismayed by all the physicians who testified were against it and you had a conversation with doctor Katherine Ross who told you about conversations with her colleagues and how torn they are about it, why did they uphold them . For a number of reasons. Many go back to the idea that physicians should do no harm. Let us begin to wonder in whose head harm exists . Does it exist in the mind and the heart of the patient who may be receiving one more treatment, does it exist in the mind of the doctor who feels lets try this one more thing. There is a feel patients can get onto especially those who are suffering from serious cancer diagnoses, who try one treatment after another. The church and most especially the Roman Catholic church. You testified in massachusetts. Maryland as well. In the case of massachusetts you talks with a Catholic Priest in massachusetts, one of the longer conversations in the book. What rationale was offered for the church of opposition . I must say to a certain extent i agree with the churches position that if you believe that god should be the only decider, i support you 100 , as a patient, you have every single treatment medical science can offer you. I support you 100 in the same way, i believe at some point i want to make their own decisions that enough is enough. I want, many of those doctors continue to believe the hippocratic oath says to them that they must do no harm and they interpret that to mean i may not take part in ending an individuals life but my role is not to take that position alive. Younger physicians are learning more and more about that do no harm and what that means . Approach the two microphones, we get to your questions or commentss, the husband of Brittany Maynard who had a brain tumor and a lifelong catholic, to seek medical aid and dying, and goes oregon, moved from california to oregon and what about your own face . How do you reconcile support for medical aid and dying. I am a strong believer in god and have been since i was as a young child. Actually though i wont go into it and believe i have seen some miracles so that my belief in god is strong, my own belief is that god would not want to see me suffer unnecessarily from a prolonged illness. I reconcile that easily, i receive holy communion. I kneel and pray in thanks for my life. My god is there with me and i know that. Tell us about the organization, compassion and choices. A wonderful organization. Compassionate choices supporting us in this documentary film, we are looking for the same final issue to supports and choice in dying, choice at the end, medical aid, those who want it