One of the most organized efforts to defeat right-to-die (RTD) legislation wherever it is proposed is spear-headed by Not Dead Yet (NDY) under its current President, Diane Coleman. NDY claims to represent, or be representative of, at least 12 disability rights groups who oppose RTD legislation. Coleman’s failed appeal to Maine Governor Janet Mills to veto the RTD law, passed narrowly by Maine’s legislature, presents an outline of the arguments used to oppose such RTD laws.
Two participants, one an exit guide and one a friend, look at the same voluntary exit and report their experiences, emotions.
John Abraham explains the process to receive educational and training services from the Final Exit Network if you are considering a self-controlled death.
More jurisdictions are accepting physician-assisted death (PAD). What does this mean for Final Exit Network? Are we becoming less relevant, or more? FEN President Janis Landis addresses these questions.
Asunción Álvarez del Río, PhD, a FEN member in Mexico City, reports on the status of aid in dying in Spain.
Are patients in nursing homes more likely to die from suicide? A look at a recent report on the subject in the Annals of Long-Term Care.
Author and retired technology expert Harwell Thrasher shares his experiences caring for his wife Sharon after she was diagnosed with ALS.
Words matter. Medical aid in dying (MAID or MAiD) is the term now widely accepted in law and medicine to describe the practice of a physician prescribing medication to a terminally ill, mentally competent, adult patient who may choose to ingest it to end suffering they find unbearable, and achieve a peaceful death. It is accurate language which should be used. Other terminology such as physician aid in dying may also be used, but increasingly there is a preference for the term medical aid in dying.
Recently, Derek Humphry wrote about the words we use to discuss end-of-life concerns in the US, focusing on the appropriateness of the term “suicide.” He did so, in part, to stimulate a discussion about the words we use. Like Humphry, I have no personal problem with the use of the term suicide–it accurately describes death by our own hand–but I resist it for several reasons.
The earlier five-part series looking at Thaddeus Pope’s analysis of the risks faced by clinicians who do not follow the advance directives of their patients has been augmented by a case that was recently settled for $1 million. The settlement was reported on March 28, 2019, in the North Coast Journal, Humboldt County, California.
