Host Devorah Medwin speaks with right to die activist, author, and president emerita/senior adviser of Compassion & Choices, a national non-profit organization dedicated to expanding and protecting the rights of the terminally ill. In this episode she discusses life, loss and her memoir, Finish Strong: Putting Your Priorities First at Life's End. Staffing the Oregon Senate Healthcare and Bioethics committee in 1991, Coombs Lee helped Oregon State Senator Frank L. Roberts as he proposed one of the first aid in dying laws in the nation.
Coombs Lee joined the Oregon Right to Die Political Action Committee that had already been working on draft bills, serving as spokesperson for the group through two statewide campaigns and 10 years defending against attacks on the nation's first Death with Dignity law in both the judicial and legislative arenas.