Terminally ill Connecticut woman ends life with assisted suicide in Vermont after helping to change state law

A Connecticut woman who helped convince Vermont lawmakers to extend euthanasia rights to people from out of state died a “comfortable and peaceful” death Thursday after a years-long battle with fallopian tube cancer.

Lynda Bluestein, 76, was able ended her life on her terms with prescribed medication.

According to her husband, Paul, Bluestein’s final words were, “I’m so happy I don’t have to do this anymore,” he shared in an email with advocacy group Compassion & Choices.

The group filed a lawsuit on behalf of Bluestein in August 2022, arguing that Vermont’s denial of assisted-suicide services to non-residents violated the U.S. Constitution.

The state agreed in March to let Bluestein die there legally, then in May extended that right to all terminally ill people wishing to end their lives when they choose. Oregon is the only other state to allow medically assisted suicide for non-residents.

Bluestein told The Associated Press last year she hoped to die on her own terms, surrounded by family, friends and her dog.

“I wanted to have agency over when cancer had taken so much for me that I could no longer bear it,” she said. “That’s my choice.”

The retired community public health professional was diagnosed with cancer in March 2021, according to the Hartford Courant. At the time, she was given six months to three years to live.

Bluestein said she watched her mother die from cancer and didn’t want to be remembered as someone who spent her finals days “in an adult diaper, curled up in a fetal position, drugged out of my mind.”

Vermont began allowing terminally ill residents to die by medically assisted suicide more than a decade ago, so long as their prognosis was for six more months of life or less.

With News Wire Services