Dear readers and writers,
As we begin 2023, the editors of The Good Death Society Blog send you our greetings and best wishes for a happy new year! We greatly appreciate your interest and support that has helped us to become a significant online forum in the end-of-life community.
Moving forward, we welcome your feedback, input, and suggestions to enhance our goal “to discuss a wide range of right-to-die issues, from legislation to advance directives to other countries’ approach to the right to die, and anything else deemed relevant to end-of-life freedom.” Let us know what you like about our blog posts, what we can do better, and topics that you feel should be included.
Also remember that all of our blog posts are archived by topic. These are readily accessible by clicking on the category on the list or by using the search function. We hope this resource will be helpful to you and your loved ones when facing end-of-life challenges and choices.
We’re always looking for good content! If you have something to say or an experience you’d like to share, please send it to us so we can consider posting it. Here’s a link to our guidelines for submissions.
Please help us tailor our focus and content to your needs and interests by using the comments link below or sending us an email at fenblogeditor@gmail.com.
If you’d prefer to receive our blog posts by email, just enter your email address in the link to the right of this post and click on “Sign up”. New posts will automatically come to your inbox each week.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
Final Exit Network (FEN) is a network of dedicated professionals and caring, trained volunteers
who support mentally competent adults as they navigate their end-of-life journey.
Established in 2004, FEN seeks to educate qualified individuals in practical,
peaceful ways to end their lives, offer a compassionate bedside presence, and defend
a person’s right to choose. For more information, go to www.finalexitnetwork.org.
Payments and donations are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.
Final Exit Network is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
Is the blog editor willing to tell us her/his/their name? It’s good to have a human touch!
Hi Ruth — Gary Wederspahn and Melanie Raine are acting as interim blog editors at this time.
Being an End-of-Life Doula and Death Educator of diverse communities, I understand the
cultural barriers that lead to the myths, skepticism, and distrust around Advance Care and End-
of-Life Planning. The blog post, The Ways Inequality Affects Black Americans at the End
of Life, noted several barriers that influence the lack of end-of-life planning, including
historical events of health inequity and discrimination.
A physician’s duty is affirmed by taking the oath to Do No Harm. When patient-centered care is
the focus, it’s essential to realize that conscious and unconscious biases may influence their
decisions on the care patients of color receive. Therefore, when demonstrated with a sense of
responsibility, cultural awareness is a tool that is beneficial to serving patients of color.
Likewise, communities of color are responsible for understanding that forming one’s healthcare
choices solely based on the past, does not result in making informed decisions. Unfortunately
ignoring opportunities to learn about planning for medical emergencies and end-of-life care only
perpetuate problems for receiving quality care.
Death is not a self-fulfilling prophecy. Death occurs when the time comes for one’s life to end.
The sooner we accept that it is inevitable, the better prepared we can be when it happens.
Advance care and end-of-life planning are needed in all communities, particularly in
communities of color where systemic barriers and the struggle to survive are ever-present
realities.
Val Walker
End-of-life Doula
Thanks, Val, for giving us this nudge toward greater inclusiveness and diversity in our content.
You are welcome.
Thanks so much for this information. I share your website far and wide.
Thanks for doing what you do.
Susan, we greatly appreciate you sharing the vision and hope of a “Good Death” for all. That’s how our readership and community grow.
Your website and your mission are wonderful! Congrats on the growth of your site in only two years. You are helping so many.
As a longtime advocate for PAD (Physician Aid in Dying) legislation and patient autonomy in determining when “enough is enough”, I support any forum which enables people to share their ideas on how to bring the subject into the mainstream. My approach for the last decade has been to talk to small groups about both FEN and Compassion & Choices. Sometimes it’s a formal program (at a library or a UU congregation) but more recently it has been just informal groups of friends – and then friends of friends, so that a widening circle of people become aware of FEN and C & C. I often ask for extra copies of the newsletters to distribute … and I know that several of the attendees have become members of FEN as well as supporters of Aid in Dying legislation.
I would suggest that we can all create our own little groups …. and continue to advocate in this low tech but highly personal way.
Great idea, Eleanor! Any of our readers could easily send links to any of our blog posts to their friends as discussion topics for small informal groups.
First I want to appreciate “interim blog editors” Gary and Melanie for asking for this feedback as we ease into 2023. Being responsible for putting out a high quality and thoughtful blog post every week is a significant undertaking. So, thanks to them and to the FEN leadership for this commitment and for doing such a good job in archiving and indexing the entries. It is a rich and helpful repository of perspectives on end of life issues.
Personally, I enjoy receiving my early Monday morning email and I always click and take a look to at least skim the most recent posts. Sometimes I am impressed or delighted by them, and I forward them on to others in my circle. Other times I enjoy them but quickly move on with my day. And sometimes I take exception, disagree or am disappointed by the perspective/information that the author shares…so be it! In a few cases the blog has motivated me to explore a new area of end-of-life issues. I value all of these reactions…its a good way to start my week.
The Good Death Blog presents an eclectic array of end of life issues, topics, and personal stories. I like and fully support maintaining the wide variation of opinions, approaches and issues that often inform me beyond my day to day focus and work with End of Life Options New Mexico. So friends, keep up the good work…and thanks for asking.
Good luck with the current legal challenges facing End of Life Options New Mexico.
I also enjoy and value the variety of topics and issues presented, and read all of them. I personally am most interested in the completed life, self-chosen, self deliverance type of writings. I find the legal aspects of MAID not as valuable, and am more drawn towards the folks who are exploring the frontiers of choosing when and how to end one’s own life. As a freedom lover, I do not agree with all the rules and limits and barriers placed to keep people away from their own decisions regarding death; it feels abusive that members of the medical cartel have the authority to allow, or prohibit such a personal and intimate choice.
Thanks for your comments, Constance. We will continue to give emphasis to topics that support the right to die on our own terms.
I want to let you know that I forward the weekly post to my 150 member Café Mortel as well as our LinkedIn page.
Thanks, Chris! Death Cafes anywhere, https://deathcafe.com/, are welcome to free access to all of our blogposts.
This is good and looks very professional. I am always in favor of re-editing my copy for brevity. Hard to read a lot of print, especially when it says the same thing in different ways.
LOVE the archives!!!
Thanks very much for all you do . . . and for doing it so well!
The blog has been very informative and I wish I had more to add than A comment about how much I appreciate it. If there were more options in the USA for PAD, or more data, about how to exit gently with the means easily available, we would be living in A more compassionate country.
These Posts are well written, interesting, and collectively suggest planning for one’s end of life should be done by everyone who plans vacations. These blogs enhance the image of FEN, and gradually will encourage people to think of FEN as being in the mainstream. The blog on the Power of Telling the Story is a reminder that the great speakers in history used stories to make their points. Stories make words come alive. The blog on Including Your Survivors made me realize I haven’t been thinking broadly enough. My children have known for years that taking initiative at the end of life is my plan. My challenge is finding a way to prepare my granddaughter, who only likes happy-thoughts.
Thanks for your encouragement, Ron. I believe that FEN’s vision, “That any competent person unbearably suffering an intractable medical condition has the option to die legally and peacefully” makes us mainstream.
It is an excellent blog. I value and appreciate all the hard work you put in to make it a success.
I echo all the positive things others have shared. This is a vital forum, and – as all have noted – its strength is the broad variety of EOL / RTD issues that are discussed. As someone who did the blog for almost a year, I can attest to how much work is involved. Kudos to Gary and Melanie for their efforts. (I hope your “interim” label doesn’t last as long as mine did, LOL.)
I think we’re almost there, Jay! 🙂 Kudos to you, too!
I have been exploring the blog and I really congratulate you for the great work you are doing. I enjoy the blog and I have learnt a lot from it.
Asuncion, your vote of confidence means a great deal to us coming from you, the president of The World Federation of Right to Die Societies. It makes us feel a part of the international movement to gain the right of people everywhere to die on their own terms.