Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD)

On December 12, 2025, Governor Pritzker signed a law making Illinois the 12th state to offer certain terminally ill patients the choice to end their own lives with a lethal prescription. This law will become effective in September 2026.

MAiD is available to decisional terminal patients with fewer than six months to live. Decisional, in this context, means the patient is competent to make a contemporaneous decision to seek and administer the lethal prescription.

Although your intent to seek MAiD may be expressed in an advance directive, the directive is not self-executing and your health care proxy may not exercise the MAiD option on your behalf.

Final Chapter Doula can help you determine your current and prospective eligibility for MAiD. Should you choose to seek MAiD, we can shepherd you through the process, which involves both written and oral requests that must be made by the eligible patient at specified intervals. The process begins with a physician’s certification that the patient has a terminal illness and is expected to die within six months. You should make your doctor aware that you may choose to exercise your MAiD option at the earliest possible date following your diagnosis. Unless you are first diagnosed within the final six months of your expected life duration, this notification does not serve as a request for MAiD within the strictures of the law. We nonetheless recommend this notification to alert your doctor that you want to be kept apprised of her professional judgment of your remaining life duration and that you expect the doctor to advise you when you reach the six month mark.

Final Chapter Doula can walk you through the necessary steps of the MAiD process, including the timing and content of oral and written requests to your physician. These steps are mandated by law, and you can also obtain information about these steps for free from a variety of credible, online resources.

More important, Final Chapter Doula can work with you to advise family and friends of your decision. We will help you plan the details surrounding MAiD, including where you want to die, whether you want others present and whom, whether you want certain music or readings as part of a ritual ceremony leading up to your self-administration of a lethal prescription. Finally, you will not die alone. We will be there, either in the room or in the background, at your option, to follow through following your death with the necessary steps to have your death certified and to initiate both (1) your transfer to a funeral director for internment, cremation, or the other remains disposal of your choice; and (2) the rituals you have planned or anticipate for your mourners. We will also make death notifications to any individuals you have designated to receive such notification, including, but not limited to clergy: work with the funeral director to make sure your final wishes are honored; prepare and place whatever death notices or obituaries you request; and arrange for professional cleaning of the site of your death at an appropriate time.