What Next - Best of 2023 | Fighting for the Right to Die
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2023
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the What Next team catches its breath at the end of summer, we’re revisiting some of the biggest stories of the year. This story originally ran on April 27. What Next will resume regular programming next week.
A self-described activist had late-stage, fallopian tube cancer. She didn’t live in one of the 11 jurisdictions that allows terminally-ill patients the choice to medically end their own lives. But rather than relocating, she argued Vermont’s residency restrictions were unconstitutional.
Guest: Lynda Bluestein, a 75-year-old woman seeking to end her life on her terms, who successfully sued Vermont over their residency requirement in their “Patient Choice At End of Life” law.
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Transcript
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| 0:55.2 | what next plus. All right, on with a show. Hey there, it's Mary. Back with another one of my |
| 1:01.6 | favorite episodes from the year. Conversations with people who made me see the world a little differently. |
| 1:09.9 | Back in April, I spoke with Linda Bluestein, a terminally ill woman who had just sued Vermont |
| 1:15.6 | in federal court, and won. She sued because Vermont allowed residents to ask for help with |
| 1:21.5 | assisted suicide, but not out of state patients, people like her. And Linda's case changed that, |
| 1:29.1 | not just for her, but for everyone. Vermont is now one of just two states that allows out-of-state |
| 1:34.4 | patients to access end-of-life care. She really made a difference. Okay, here's the show. |
| 1:40.6 | Linda Bluestein is operating on a deadline. Yeah. In all the meetings of that word, yes. |
| 1:55.8 | Linda does not know when this deadline will hit. Just that it'll hit very soon. |
| 2:00.5 | Linda's got cancer. Her third round of it, actually. First, there was breast cancer, then there |
| 2:11.9 | was skin cancer. Now she's dealing with fallopian tube cancer. She calls it ovarian cancer's evil |
| 2:18.5 | twin. It's very rare, and it's very deadly. After some brutal chemotherapy, death doesn't |
... |
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