The following story mentions suicide. Reader discretion advised. 

As proponents of assisted suicide continue to argue that legalized assisted suicide can be “safe” with the right number of guardrails, a recent exposé — and the leader of the nonprofit that helped produce it — counters that narrative and warns that vulnerable populations continue to be at risk. 

In December 2025, Assisted Suicide Watch, an initiative of the nonprofit Aging with Dignity, released a 12-minute video exposé outlining how Eileen Mihich, a 31-year-old woman with mental health struggles, circumvented all “safeguards” of Washington’s assisted suicide law to obtain a deadly prescription in the spring of 2025. 

“A beautiful, bright young woman is just gone, her life’s just gone, because of the best intentions of this policy, that started out with the best intentions — you know, as they say, the road to hell is paved with the best intentions — but this is what happened,” Mihich’s aunt, Veronica, said in the video. “This needs to be looked at, needs to be scrutinized, needs to be brought out into the open, so somebody else doesn't have to lose a precious person.” 

According to Veronica, Mihich grew up in a household with mentally ill parents who were "both abusive in different ways,” and she was a victim of bullying as well. Throughout the exposé, Mihich is shown making numerous requests to social media about ways to find healing. Veronica shared that Mihich was borderline schizoaffective and struggled with taking care of herself in basic hygienic ways, adding that she tried to get her niece professional help multiple times. 

“She was going to school for a while, doing well,” Veronica said in the video, noting that Mihich tried several different jobs.

“[I] don't know what the sequence of events were that kind of catapulted her into this abyss — you know, this feeling that she couldn't go on,” she said. Mihich struggled with suicidality and began considering means of committing it, according to Veronica. 

Her aunt explained that Mihich considered going to the Netherlands, where assisted suicide is legal for people who are not terminally ill but have mental health struggles. 

But then, according to Veronica, at a certain point, Mihich “realized she was going to be able to pull it off here.”

“I don’t know what changed to make her realize that she was gonna be able to pull it off, but she found a way,” Veronica said. 

According to the exposé, Mihich impersonated a doctor from California and forged documentation that she had stage four cervical cancer. Using this fake paperwork, she obtained a deadly prescription of drugs from a pharmacist in Washington, where asissted suicide is legal for citizens in the state who have a terminal diagnosis. The Washington Death with Dignity Act has a number of “guardrails,” such as two doctors approving the request for the drugs and a waiting period. Veronica noted that none of these requirements were followed through. 

Mihich’s family found her dead in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon, on March 8, 2025. 

Veronica shared that her family continues to wrestle with questions amid the grief.

“How she got access to those drugs is a little bit mystifying to us still, because the law is supposed to be very strict,” Veronica said. “She just slid through the cracks.”

“They did not verify that she was terminally ill, that she was a resident of Washington state, they did not have two doctors document, sign off on this, they did not have a waiting period, it just should not have happened, if it was as strict as it was intended to be … My niece was a very intelligent young woman,” Veronica said, “but, you know, she wasn’t a genius, that’s really the point. It wasn’t that hard for her to exploit it, and that’s really dangerous.”

In a Jan. 29 phone interview with Zeale News, Jamie Towey, president of Aging with Dignity, noted that Mihich had little difficulty in circumventing the safeguards of the Death with Dignity Act. 

“It wasn’t hard to do. It was something that can be done in any state where this is legal … It wasn’t so much as the safeguards failed as they were blown by all together,” Towey said. 

The Washington Department of Health is reportedly conducting an investigation into the tragedy, but Towey noted there have not been public updates on the case. 

In a Dec. 17 press release following exposé’s publication, Towey called on Washington Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson “to impose an immediate moratorium on further assisted suicide approvals until the law is altered to prevent this tragedy from happening again.”

Speaking to Zeale News, Towey also pointed out the cognitive dissonance of states investing both in suicide prevention resources and permitting physician-assisted suicide. 

Towey estimated that as a country, there is “well north of a billion dollars” being spent on suicide prevention, promoting messages that lives need to be protected and that suicide is wrong. 

But, at the same time, assisted suicide laws communicate that suicide is okay if someone meets all thre right criteria, he noted.

This introduces a slippery slope as well, because criteria can be expanded, and it also poses a question of whether, if a person meets that criteria, there is an “expectation” that he or she should commit suicide, according to Towey. 

He cited data from Oregon that 89% of people who received phyisican-assisted suicide said losing autonomy was their primary reason for choosing it. Among several reasons to choose from, pain ranked as one of the lowest. 

“I think that it's a complete contradiction that while we pursue these life-saving measures for people experiencing suicidality, we then create this two-tiered system that pushes other people towards it,” Towey said.

He emphasized that there are other ways to resolve the crises people experience that lead them to consider assisted suicide.

“Assisted suicide is the wrong answer to real problems,” he said.

Those challenges — which can be particularly acute in nursing homes — include loneliness, a poor support system, and insufficient pain management.

“These are people [who] need to be accompanied,” Towey said, “they need to be loved, they need to be walked with.”

That calls for enforcing laws that support the self-determination of patients with a terminal illness or older adults in general, rather than encouraging assisted suicide, Towey said. He noted that Aging with Dignity assists people with advanced care planning, allowing people to decide the kind of care they want near the end of their life. 

He emphasized the importance of improving access to pain management, raising awareness about hospice care and palliative care availability, and engaging local faith communities and other groups that accompany people who are nearing the end of their lives.

Towey also noted that safeguards against artificial intelligence (AI) will be important to invest in, as there is concern it could be employed to cut costs and replace human care. 

While AI can accomplish impressive things, it is important to remember “to keep the human at the center of the care,” Towey said, “and remember that people are not just lists of symptoms that need to be treated.”

“These are people with hopes, with dreams, with pasts, [who] are desperate to love and be loved,” he added. 

Aging with Dignity launched a petition on behalf of Mihich, calling for an end to physician-assisted suicide. People who signed the petition also had the ability to leave a comment or personal thought on the issue. An emailed newsletter from Aging with Dignity shared several of the responses, underscoring citizens’ concerns over the effects of legalized physician-assisted suicide. Last names were not disclosed. 

“All life has inherent value, and it is not appropriate for the medical or legal systems to decide who should live and who should die,” a petition signer named Max said. 

“Having experienced suicide of a close family member, I don't think suicide under ANY conditions — assisted or not — should be condoned, encouraged, or normalized,” another person named Molly said. 

“No 'safeguards' make this practice safe, as this shows,” petitioner Kristine wrote. 

Another person wrote after seeing the expose about Mihich, “This is a tragedy that can be prevented with good counsel and a caring community. We have to ask ourselves the deeper question: how to care for one another in times of suffering.”  

Another that was signed “Fr. Will” thanked Assisted Suicide Watch for its advocacy, adding, “May she rest in peace and may hearts be converted to reverse these laws which are completely against 'dignity.’”