Group Releases 3rd Video for Digital Ad Campaign to Pass NJ Aid-in-Dying Bill Soon

TRENTON, N.J., Jan. 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Compassion & Choices today released its third video in a digital video ad campaign featuring passionate advocates of New Jersey's Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act (A1504/S1072) urging the state Assembly and Senate to pass the bill soon.

The two prior digital video ads featuring Paramus nurse Debra  Dunn's description of her husband Herb's horrific death and two sisters who are nurses disabled by life-shortening diseases, Laurie and Melissa Wilcox, started running on multiple digital platforms on Oct. 9. Collectively, they have generated nearly 1.5 million impressions, nearly 120,000 30-second video views and more than 5,300 video post engagements. The ads will continue until lawmakers enact the Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act into law.

The new video features terminally ill Rumson resident Susan Boyce. She urges New Jerseyans to write their lawmakers in support of the legislation and to bring it to the floor of the Assembly and Senate for a vote at: CompassionAndChoices.org/New-Jersey. Their video is posted at: bit.ly/SusanBoyceVideo.

"I have…a genetic disease that has had the effect of reducing my lung function to 29 percent. Every time I get any kind of lung infection, my immune system overreacts and has damaged my lungs. There's nothing to reverse the progress of the lung disease," says Boyce. "I'm terminally ill … I have a supportive loving family that help take care of me. But I know there's going to come a time at the end of this illness where I'm going to encounter suffering. I would very much be relieved if I had the option to have medical aid in dying to die peacefully in my sleep."

A 2-1 majority (63% vs. 29%) of New Jersey voters, including most Protestants (73%), Catholics (64%) and other non-Protestant residents (59%), support medical aid in dying, according to the most recent state poll on the issue by Rutgers-Eagleton. Major newspapers statewide have endorsed the Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act.

"Every month the legislature delays passing this bill means more New Jerseyans will suffer needlessly at the end of life," said Corinne Carey, New Jersey campaign director for Compassion & Choices. "They cannot afford to wait any longer for lawmakers to act."

Medical aid in dying is authorized in Washington, D.C. and seven states: California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Collectively, these jurisdictions represent nearly 1 out of 5 Americans (19%) and have 40 years of combined experience safely using this end-of-life care option.

Compassion & Choices is the oldest, largest and most active nonprofit working to improve care and expand options for the end of life in the United States, with 450,000 supporters nationwide. For more information, visit: CompassionAndChoices.org.

Media contact: Sean Crowley, 202-495-8520-c, [email protected]

SOURCE Compassion & Choices

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http://CompassionAndChoices.org