Note: This event has been canceled by the organizer.

Barbara Coombs Lee is president of the largest organization dedicated to aid-in-dying, Compassion & Choices. She practiced as a nurse and physician assistant for 25 years before beginning a career in law and health policy. Her professional experience includes work as a private attorney, counsel to the Oregon State Senate and managed care executive.

Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization that has been helping people with end-of-life choices for more than 30 years. In addition to planning and information resources, the organization works to protect and expand end-of-life options across the nation.

Coombs Lee was coauthor and one of the chief petitioners of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, a citizens' initiative voted into law in 1994. The initiative made Oregon the first place in the United States to allow a terminally ill patient, after meeting required safeguards, to obtain a prescription to die peacefully. Coombs Lee also served as senior advisor for the Washington state Death with Dignity ballot initiative, which was voted into law in 2008.

Coombs Lee advocates for the terminally ill through her numerous speaking appearances and contributes articles to both The Huffington Post and Sharecare.com, which is part of The Dr. Oz Show.

Coombs Lee will sign programs and welcome photographs at the end of the evening.