A long road to legalization of aid-in-dying law
Andrew Ginsburg has put Southport on the map.
Unfortunately, he's put it in some wrong places on the map. Places that may be south, but don't have ports.
For the past few years, Ginsburg has been writing letters to the editor to newspapers across the country. He figured out quickly that editors favor letters from people who reside in their state. So when Ginsburg fills out an online form for a letter, he cites Southport as his town, while conveniently neglecting to change the name of the state.
As a result, editors at the Idaho Press, for example, were apparently unaware that the Gem State lacks a Southport. So yeah, he cheated. “I know, it's bad,” Ginsburg says.
His tone makes it sound like a confession, but Ginsburg is a standup comic, that category of humanity that feels guilty about absolutely nothing, least of all pulling one over on editorial page editors.
We'll give him a pass, because Ginsburg committed to writing efficiently, reasoning that “the challenge of writing a premise and arguing a point in 150 words or less was not unlike joke writing, where brevity is rewarded and ‘the kicker' has to pack a punch.”
Think that's easy? I lapped 150 words two paragraphs ago.
Ginsburg is a fitness trainer by day and a comic by night. As a bodybuilder he could be Batman without the padded Hollywood Underoos, but would occasionally have to tell Commissioner Gordon, “Sorry, I'm busy. Maybe you can tell the Joker to catch my act at the Gotham Comedy Club.”
After COVID stole his stage in 2020, Ginsburg decided to express himself via “missives,” a word favored by one of his inspirations, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (“he made letters cool”). The Hartford Courant published his first effort, a love letter to the new “drive-by” birthday parties that spared parents small talk, lukewarm pizza and toddlers crankied up by frosting on the ride home.
He followed it up by sending a letter to The New York Times, which is like a stand-up opening a tour by playing Madison Square Garden. Unlike most papers, the Times responded with its own form letter of questions, along with a hint of hope.
“They write that ‘we're considering it for publication.' Which is sort of like saying ‘I may go out with you. I may not,' ” Ginsburg cracks.
The Times published the letter, and he quickly added the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post to his collection. Most of the time, he never heard from editors who ran his material. That changed when he crossed the pond for his 19th submission.
“I'm calling from the Guardian,” he says, imitating an accent that makes it sound like his editor was channeling Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins.”
After returning stateside, he started checking off states by getting published in the likes of the Caledonian Record, the North Platte Telegraph, the Daily Ardmoreite, the Maui News, the Daily Nonpareil, the Laramie Boomerang and the paper with a name any comic would love and readers will immediately factcheck: the Tillamook
Headlight Herald.
The count currently stands at 70 letters in 49 newspapers across 36 states. He harbored hopes he was chasing some kind of record, only to be humbled by the Google reveal that Subhash Chandra Agrawal of India published 3,699 letters.
“To protect my ego, I wondered why this lazy man couldn't write one more, and round it out nicely.”
Ginsburg still has a lot of miles to cover. His list of “states to be dealt with later” consists of Maine, Rhode Island, Alabama, Louisiana, Alaska, Delaware, Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, Nevada, Washington, South Carolina, Georgia and South Dakota. He understands why he has yet to break through in conservative states such as Alabama and Mississippi, but isn't giving up hope.
His real grudge is with his New England neighbors.
“Maine was the one I was pissed about,” Ginsburg says in mock outrage. “C'mon, you guys are so close. I'm very angry at Maine and Rhode Island. Dude, the stuff was up to par.”
Unlike other writers I've known who made similar efforts, Ginsburg uses fresh material for each letter. Humor infuses much of his writing, but many of them address serious topics, such as same-sex marriage, the Israel-Hamas war and abortion. If he is wrong about anything, it's that “columnists have the coolest job. … Writing a column has always been a fantasy. You pick any topic and write a column and hopefully people like it. The freedom is beautiful.”
(Counterpoint: Freedom is just another word for too much left to muse.)
As the pandemic waned, Ginsburg shifted his writing focus to a different format. In 2017, he published “Pumping Irony: How to Build Muscle, Lose Weight, and Have the Last Laugh.” Now, with three children (ages 2, 4 and 6), he is trying to write his first children's book, a format that demands similar discipline. “They are so judicious with words,” he says he has learned. “So 600 words is on the high side. I have to cut it down to 450 words.”
As for checking off those other states, he pledged that “If there's another pandemic I'll go after the remaining states.” (Who says there's no bright side to COVID?)
Alas, I have to share with Ginsburg that we won't be able to publish the letter that inspired this column. It now being redundant and all.
But in hopes of helping him get the last laugh, I offer this editorial advice: Maine is home to a town named Southport.
For more than a decade, I've advocated for Connecticut lawmakers to pass a medical aid-indying law to allow a mentally capable, terminally ill adult the option to decide to take prescription medication to peacefully end unbearable suffering at the end of their life. Despite the fact that more than three-quarters of Connecticut voters support this policy (75 percent vs. 21 percent), which is already approved in 10 states and Washington, D.C., our state lawmakers have not approved medical aid-indying legislation in more than a dozen attempts.
After another failure to pass a medical aid-indying bill last spring, I wanted to better understand the reasons and rethink what we could do to convince lawmakers to say yes. Our supporters, who give freely of their time to advocate for passage, were devastated when the legislation did not even get a vote in the Judiciary Committee after the Public Health Committee approved it for the third straight year.
For several of our supporters who are terminally ill and want to have the option of medical aid in dying when their time comes, the failure to pass legislation could force difficult decisions. Do they leave their homes and relocate to a nearby state where medical aid in dying is allowed, such as Maine, New Jersey or Vermont to experience a peaceful death without needless suffering?
In my effort to find a new approach, I decided to walk across Connecticut from my home in South Windsor and travel to all four corners of the state. My plan: to visit districts of key lawmakers who support and oppose the legislation and talk with constituents along the way.
Over 30 days and 300 miles, I talked to hundreds of people and re-learned something I had almost begun to take for granted after living here for 25 years. Connecticut is a remarkably beautiful state, with a fascinating history, spectacular countryside, and warm and welcoming people. It's a place where people want to live and raise families, and to live their final days.
I walked with dozens of supporters, most with stories that brought them to advocate for medical aid in dying. They included wives, husbands and friends who sat at the bedsides of dying loved ones, who in their final days, asked for help in gently ending needless suffering that Connecticut law does not allow.
Our conversations were often not about medical aid in dying or those difficult deaths, but about our lives, our children; funny, happy stories about the people we know or the towns we were visiting. I came to have a much richer understanding of supporters who have come to the state Capitol year after year to share wrenching stories of their loved ones' deaths. Connecticut is their home, where they work and live and play, where family, friends, and colleagues are their support.
The thought of uprooting someone who is terminally ill, in their final days, and taking them away from everything and everyone they know and love, to ease their passing is especially cruel. And yet without the passage of medical aid-in-dying legislation in Connecticut, it is the only option available to end intolerable suffering when no other option provides relief.
Medical aid in dying has a long and proven history of successful implementation across the country. While critics warn of malfeasance and misuse, there is no evidence of that, including more than 25 years of use in Oregon alone.
Critics worry that its availability would prompt overuse. But the opposite has proven true.
Since implementation more than 25 years ago in Oregon in 1997, and following implementation in 10 other jurisdictions, fewer than 6,400 people across the country have utilized this end-of-life care option.
There is a cost to not passing medical aid-indying legislation. Without legislation, terminally ill people who want to utilize this end-of-life option are forced to choose between a needlessly painful and difficult death, and leaving their home and everything they know and love to find a peaceful end, as my friend Lynda Bluestein was forced to do this month.
I urge lawmakers to raise a bill, hold a public hearing in the Judiciary Committee, pay attention to the facts. Disregard the misinformation from opponents for whom there will never be enough “safeguards” because they oppose this option under any circumstances. Please consider the needs and the will of an overwhelming majority of Connecticut residents and pass medical aid-in-dying legislation in 2024.
Every one of us is one diagnosis away from having to ponder our end-oflife care options. Every one of us deserves access to all of the options today. Tomorrow or next year may be too late.