PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — For generations, Jennifer McDowell says, her family has been living with an incurable genetic disease. Now she's asking Rhode Island leaders to let her die with dignity.

“I deserve the right to a peaceful death, preferably at home, surrounded by family and those who love me," she said in her testimony before the Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

McDowell, who is Congressman Seth Magaziner's mother-in-law, was one of several Rhode Islanders sharing their personal stories in support of physician-assisted death as lawmakers consider a bill that would let terminally ill patients ask their doctors to prescribe medication to end their lives.

McDowell said she is starting to show signs of a disease that she believes goes back as far as her ancestor, S

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