Hiding in the shadows behind all of our end-of-life (EOL) discussions about the desire to maintain an acceptable quality of life is the issue of adequate health care, which is basic to a right to live. Many of us believe that there can be no “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” without a right to adequate medical care.
If you thought that the safeguards prescribed by Oregon’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) law, and the similar laws in eight other jurisdictions, are too onerous, there are others to consider.
“When safeguards become roadblocks, Part 2” continues exploring FEN’s eligibility criteria, looks at other impediments to MAID, and considers one minimal change that recently has been made to Oregon’s law.
In the nine states/jurisdictions in which medical assistance in dying (MAID) is allowed through legislation or referendum, the insistence on extensive safeguards has served less to protect vulnerable individuals than to limit access to MAID.
Most dementia directives call for voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) at a prescribed point late in the progression of dementia. In most cases, this requires eliminating hand feeding based on the proposition that hand feeding is a medical treatment or medical care.
A 30-year old Florida Supreme Court decision may provide support for the use of a dementia directive that provides for voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED).
This post, Part 3 of a series on dementias directives, discusses the supplemental advance directive for dementia offered by Final Exit Network (FEN) for those people who do NOT want to live into the later stages of dementia. The FEN dementia directive was drafted by FEN’s legal counsel, Robert Rivas.
Part 1 of this multi-part analysis identifies eight Dementia Directives by authorship and discusses overall characteristics of each. This second part analyses the approaches to drafting such directives to help readers think about the elements of each.
This post begins a multi-part series about dementia directives, analyzing their provisions and their purposes.
Jay Niver, newsletter editor for Final Exit Network, shares the film made about his dad’s hastened death to end his suffering from terminal prostate cancer.
