New York state lawmakers have introduced a “death with dignity” bill that would make the state the sixth in the U.S. to allow terminally ill adults to end their own lives with doctor-prescribed medicine.
“The option to end one’s suffering when facing the final stages of a terminal illness should be a basic human right, and not dependent upon one’s zip code,” state Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) said in a statement Tuesday.
Savino is the primary co-sponsor of the New York End-of-Life Options Act, which would allow doctors to prescribe “medication that a patient can self-administer to bring about a peaceful and humane death.”
The bill, introduced last week, is modeled after Oregon’s “Death With Dignity” law, which grabbed headlines in October after Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old with terminal brain cancer, moved to the state from California in order to end her life. Maynard was surrounded by her family in Portland when she died on Nov. 1.
Who’s the wealthiest of them all?
From Forbes:
| Rank | County | State | Median Household Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Loudoun County | Virginia | |
| 2 | Howard County | Maryland | |
| 3 | Fairfax County | Virginia | |
| 4 | Hunterdon County | New Jersey | |
| 5 | Arlington County | Virginia | |
| 6 | Stafford County | Virginia | |
| 7 | Putnam County | New York | |
| 8 | Somerset County | New Jersey | |
| 9 | Douglas County | Colorado | |
| 10 | Morris County | New Jersey | |
| 11 | Montgomery County | Maryland | |
| 12 | Prince William County | Virginia | |
| 13 | Nassau County | New York | |
| 14 | Santa Clara County | California | |
| 15 | Charles County | Maryland |
Prince William County is #12. That’s not too shabby. Half the households make more than $93,744 annually and half make less. Loudoun, of course, puts us to shame with a top median household income of nearly $118,000 per year.
