May 6, 2026
Chet Cunningham, 88, was diagnosed with terminal cancer about two months before he died in January. (Photo provided)
A Marietta woman whose grandfather was active and healthy before a cancer left him in agony and bedridden is advocating for a bill to allow those to end their lives on their terms.
“I know we have an uphill battle,” said Shara Baumgartel, whose grandfather, Chet Cunningham, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia just after Thanksgiving 2025.
Cunningham, 88, was given six months to live, but determined to make it eight. By mid-January he had collapsed into a reality of agonizing pain, constant blood transfusions, another bone marrow biopsy and a body that no longer matched his sharp, sound mind, Baumgartel said.
“Grandpa Chet was never a man to beat around the bush. A devout Christian and devoted church elder for over 30 years, he knew exactly where he was going when he died,” she said. “He was ready to see his Creator and his wife of 68 years, but as he lay in a hospital bed, exhausted by a treatment that could not cure him, he looked at me and asked a question no granddaughter should have to answer: ‘If I had a plug I could pull out of the wall, I would. How can we make this happen? I need answers.’”
Thirteen states and Washington, D.C., have similar laws, Baumgartel said. The Medical Aid in Dying Act, based on those laws, was introduced on April 23 and recently given the number House Bill 835, which has yet to be assigned to a committee.
A similar bill was introduced in 2018 and not taken up by the General Assembly.
“The issue is much more visible now through social media and people have become more familiar since the introduction of the 2018 legislation,” Baumgartel, a member of Ohio End of Life Options, said.
The Medical Aid in Dying Act as introduced respects patient autonomy, allowing sound-minded, terminally-ill adults to make their own choices and provides safeguards, requiring multiple medical opinions to ensure it is a voluntary act. Patients can stop the process at any time.
Opposition has more to do with the membership of the Legislature than Ohioans, Baumgartel said. The end-of-life option is supported by 70% of Ohioans, she said.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of changing people’s minds,” Baumgartel said.
Among the groups opposed is the Ohio Right to Life, which last week called the bill radical legislation that will allow health-care industries to profit from suicidal deaths.
“It can be difficult to sort out truth from fiction with legislation such as this,” Carrie Snyder, executive director of Ohio Right to Life, said. “Ohioans know that in truth, countless patients who think they want to die by suicide actually fear loss of autonomy and being a burden to their family.”
Baumgartel said she offers her grandfather’s example to those who argue from a place of faith.
“His faith was his bedrock and he saw no conflict between his love for God and his desire for a merciful end to his physical torment,” she said. “He wasn’t choosing death over life. The cancer had already made that choice for him. He was simply choosing a peaceful ‘falling asleep’ in his own easy chair or bed over a protracted, painful decline.”
Cunningham spent his last 10 days at home in hospice care and was surrounded by family and friends. Baumgartel said she wants Ohioans to have options her grandfather did not.
“Grandpa Chet isn’t here to fight this battle, but I am. I am asking my fellow Ohioans and our state legislators to look at the faces of their own loved ones and ask if they were in agony, would you want to tell them your hands are tied? Or would you want to allow them this option that gives them the peace they’ve earned?”
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