Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer, a Democrat, signed a bill Tuesday legalizing physician-assisted suicide for certain terminally ill patients, arguing that the measure is about “compassion, dignity, and respect for personal choice.”

The End-of-Life Options Act, which takes effect next year, allows mentally capable adults who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and given six months or less to live to request a prescription to self-administer and end their lives.

“We’re acknowledging today that even in the last moments of life, compassion matters,” Meyer said at the bill signing. “Every Delawarean should have the right to face their final chapter with peace, dignity and control.”

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“This signing today is about relieving suffering and giving families the comfort of knowing that their loved one was able to pass on their own terms, without unnecessary pain, and surrounded by the people they love most,” he continued.

Delaware is now the 11th state to allow medical aid in dying, joining California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Washington, D.C., also permits physician-assisted suicide.

“Today, Delaware joins a growing number of states in recognizing that end-of-life decisions belong to patients—not politicians,” Meyer said. “This law is about compassion, dignity, and respect. It gives people facing unimaginable suffering the ability to choose peace and comfort, surrounded by those they love. After years of debate, I am proud to sign HB 140 into law.”

The End-of-Life Options Act goes into effect next year. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Several other countries, including Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, have also legalized so-called death with dignity.

The Delaware Legislature narrowly rejected the measure last year, but Meyer pushed for it this session and it passed last month. The governor’s signature now ends nearly a decade of debate on the issue.

Under the new law, sponsored by Democrat state Rep. Eric Morrison, patients considering assisted suicide in the state must be presented with other options for end-of-life care, including comfort care, palliative care, hospice and pain control. The bill requires two waiting periods and a second medical opinion on a patient’s prognoses before they can obtain a prescription for lethal medication.

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Delaware is now the 11th state to allow medical aid in dying. (Getty Images)

State Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend, a Democrat, said the law “is about honoring the autonomy and humanity of those facing unimaginable suffering from terminal illness.”

“This legislation exists due to the courage of patients, family members, and advocates who have shared deeply personal stories of love, loss and suffering,” he said in a statement.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a 2026 candidate for California governor, criticized former Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra on Tuesday as complicit in covering up former President Biden’s cognitive decline while in office.

Villaraigosa said those actions, in part, led to President Trump winning the November election. Becerra, who previously served as California‘s attorney general, is also in the running for governor, and Harris is considering jumping into the race. All three are Democrats.

“At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover up to keep Joe Biden’s mental decline from the public,” Villaraigosa said in a statement. “Now, we have come to learn this cover up includes two prominent California politicians who served as California Attorney General — one who is running for Governor and another who is thinking about running for Governor. Voters deserve to know the truth, what did Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra know, when did they know it, and most importantly, why didn’t either of them speak out?”

Villaraigosa based his remarks on excerpts from “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson and publicly released Tuesday.

The book, largely relying on anonymous sources, argues that Biden’s confidants and inner circle kept his deteriorating state from the American people, resulting in the Republican victory in the 2024 presidential election.

The book portrays Biden as in decline for as long as a decade, and argues that a circle of political advisors and his family hid his condition from voters.

“Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra took an oath of office and were entrusted to protect the American people, but instead Kamala Harris repeatedly said there was nothing wrong with Biden and Becerra turned a blind eye,” Villaraigosa said.

“Original Sin” was published shortly after the former president disclosed on Sunday that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

One example of Biden’s cognitive decline cited by the authors was that he confused Becerra with homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, according to the New York Times.

Asked to respond to Villaraigosa’s attack, Becerra did not address this incident but expressed well wishes for the former president and his family as Biden begins treatment. He also defended his dealings with the former president when he was the nation’s health chief.

“I met with President Biden when needed to make important decisions and to execute with my team at HHS,” Becerra said in a statement. “It’s clear the President was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic. And we delivered.”

Attempts to reach a representative for Harris were unsuccessful Tuesday afternoon.