DC-Based Religious and Secular Media Coverage of the District’s Death with Dignity Act

ABSTRACT In 2016, the District of Columbia passed the Death with Dignity Act, allowing physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medicine to terminally ill patients. A framing analysis of religious and secular media coverage of the passing of the medical aid-in-dying bill was conducted. Four frames were found in the coverage: Preserving Rights, Culture War, Potential for Abuse, and Good Death vs. Bad Death. It was apparent that religious papers focused on the impact of the Death with Dignity Act by emphasizing potential problems for disadvantaged people and the expansion of the act to people who do not have a terminal illness. Positioning the act within culture as an attack on divine destiny created news frames that were based on the morality of the act. Assisted death violates divine “law” and potential problems with the act exaggerates this problem. Secular news was more balanced in the coverage.