Date of Award

Spring 6-13-2026

Document Type

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Degree Name

B.A. in Political Science, Public Policy

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Political Science

First Advisor

Michael Greenberger

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Medical aid in dying (MAiD), Framing, Policy variation, Physician assisted suicide, Institutional venues, Public opinion

Abstract

This paper asks why Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) policy in the United States does not follow a simple partisan pattern between states. Existing scholarship on morality policy emphasizes ideological conflict and partisan alignment, but this framework cannot fully explain why states with similar political compositions have adopted different MAiD policy outcomes, indicating that some key mechanisms shaping the variation have been overlooked. To address this, this paper combines a national dataset of MAiD policies across all fifty states with a comparative case study of Montana, Colorado, and West Virginia, focusing on differences in institutional venues, framing strategies, and coalition dynamics. This paper finds that institutional venues play a critical role in shaping outcomes: where judicial pathways produce narrower and more ambiguous results, legislative pathways reflect coalition alignment and generate more stable outcomes, and ballot initiatives allow policy adoption by appealing directly to public opinion through effective issue framing. These findings indicate that morality policy outcomes are shaped not only by ideological preferences but also by the ways institutional structures and framing strategies mediate political conflict, with broader implications for understanding policy variation in other morality policy areas such as abortion or other bioethical debates.

Copyright Date

5-7-2026

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Abigail Hopper

Provenance

Received from Author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

40 pgs

File Size

487 KB

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