A Tucsonan is reaching out to Arizona lawmakers to pass a Death with Dignity Act after his wife passed away from ovarian cancer.
Stone said his wife Alice was diagnosed with cancer in March 2010 and wanted to end her life early because she was in so much pain.
"She knew it was terminal and there was no way around it," said Stone. "There was nothing she could really do."
ONLY ON 9--A Tucsonan is reaching out to AZ lawmakers for a Death w/ Dignity bill after his wife w/ cancer wanted to end her life early @6pm pic.twitter.com/4rrODWpWe3
— Priscilla KGUN9 (@PriscillaCasper) March 14, 2017
After months of chemo, he says her cancer came back, and Alice was unable to live a quality life.
"Full of nausea, pain, being drugged heavily, hard to speak, she couldn't walk," he explained. "I had to help her up, and we would shuffle off to the bathroom or vomit. She would fall asleep because she was on a lot of drugs it was hard to understand her because she was in a lot of pain."
He explained she wanted to end her life early and considered going to Oregon where it is legal, but she didn't want to be away from home.
Stone and their 23-year-old daughter both supported Alice's decision.
"She wanted to make sure this was the choice for the individual, and she talked about it with me and my daughter, and we agreed if this is how she wanted to go and this had been a possibility then yeah we would support her," he said.
Alice's husband says the family supported her decision to end her life early. This is the letter Alice wrote before her cancer got worse: pic.twitter.com/FyCHDJvznW
— Priscilla KGUN9 (@PriscillaCasper) March 14, 2017
Stone had said before the disease got worse, Alice wrote a letterstating Arizona should have a Death with Dignity Act, and she wanted it to get to Arizona lawmakers.
Currently, there are two assisted dying bills that have been introduced to the Arizona State Legislature.
Alice passed away February 27, 2017, of natural causes.
