The bill returns to Lansing

House Democrats unveiled a package of bills last month to create a Death with Dignity Act in Michigan. The legislation would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending medication to terminally ill patients. The bills have been introduced for the second time in recent legislative sessions.

State Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor, is a co-sponsor of the House package. She told Bridge Michigan the bills would bring "more medical choice" to patients facing terminal illness.

"The point is not to shorten somebody's life. It's actually to shorten somebody's death process," Rheingans said.

The committee where the bills sit

The bills have been referred to the House Government Operations Committee. Rheingans said the referral signals that Republican leadership is not interested in taking up the legislation.

With Democrats in the minority in the House, she said her caucus has more time to devote to education and advocacy around the issue.

The opposition

State Rep. Matthew Bierlein, R-Vassar, opposes the legislation. He called it a morally questionable "fringe proposal" that lacks the buy-in of health care professionals.

The American Medical Association calls physician-assisted suicide "fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer" in its code of medical ethics. The Michigan State Medical Society opposes legislation governing the practice, saying it interferes with the patient-physician relationship.

Genevieve Marnon, legislative director for Right to Life of Michigan, warned that the policy could add new cost-benefit pressures on patients, doctors, facilities, and insurers.

"We want to alleviate the suffering without eliminating the person who suffers," Marnon said. "We have been proponents of good hospice and palliative care and good adequate pain medication and management."

Marnon pointed to Canada, where medical assistance in dying began in 2016. More than 16,000 Canadians used assisted dying in 2024, representing 5.1 percent of all deaths in the country that year.

What the safeguards would require

Supporters say the proposed Michigan bills include multiple layers of protection for patients.

According to Geoff Sugarman, a strategist for the national Death with Dignity campaign, the bills would require:

  • A terminal illness with a six-month prognosis confirmed by two licensed physicians before a prescription is made
  • The patient must be a mentally competent adult able to self-administer and ingest the medication independently
  • The request must be observed by two witnesses, and at least one witness cannot be a family member or entitled to the patient's estate
  • The patient can revoke their request at any time

"In the case of a terminally ill patient within six months of death, they're not necessarily ending their life. They're hastening their death," Sugarman said.

The national landscape

Similar laws now cover more than 100 million Americans in 14 states. Illinois became the first midwest state to adopt such laws last year. New York followed in 2025, joining states including California, Colorado, and Montana.

At least 11,900 patients in the United States have used medical aid in dying, according to public reports analyzed by the Death with Dignity campaign.

Pew Research Center polling found that about 6 in 10 Americans view physician-assisted death as either morally acceptable or not a moral issue.

Michigan's history with the issue

Michigan voters rejected a state ballot proposal in 1998 to legalize the prescription of lethal medication to terminally ill adults. 71 percent voted against the initiative.

The state was home to Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Royal Oak pathologist who aided in the deaths of dozens of terminally ill patients. Kevorkian, who died in 2011, was convicted and served a partial prison term for second-degree murder after the death of a Detroit man with ALS was broadcast on "60 Minutes."

Sugarman said Kevorkian's methods cannot be utilized under any legal framework in the United States today. Modern state laws put control "in the hands of the patient, as opposed to in the hands of the doctor," he said.

What happens next

The bills remain in committee with no scheduled vote. Rheingans said her caucus is using the time for education and advocacy as public opinion continues to shift.

The previous term saw Senate Democrats introduce similar legislation that also did not advance. The House package is the latest effort to codify medical aid in dying in Michigan.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the confidential Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day.