End-of-life pain can be complex and not all such pain is easily or satisfactorily controlled. FEN member Craig Phillips shares his experiences with pain control while working as a volunteer in a hospice.
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In this third part of a series analyzing the arguments against medical-assistance-in-dying (MAID) by opponents of physician-assistance in hastening a person’s death in the face of a terminal illness, Lamar Hankins looks at a major reference for most MAID opposition articles – a 2008 Michigan Law Review article, “Physician-Assisted Suicide in Oregon: A Medical Perspective,” by psychiatrist Herbert Hendin and neurologist Kathleen Foley. Both oppose what they term “assisted suicide.”
In Part 1 of this series, I addressed ten criticisms of MAID laws, particularly those in Oregon and Washington, though most such laws are modeled largely on Oregon’s law. In Part 2, I look at criticisms of MAID laws concerning economic pressures, coercion, depression, inadequate resources for MAID clients, doctor shopping, inadequate Medicaid rules, ableism, and the failure of the drugs prescribed to MAID clients. My hope is that we can learn from opponents of MAID laws how to make the laws better.
With this post, I begin a multi-part series about the views of those who oppose medical-assistance-in-dying (MAID) or have written critically about MAID laws. I think there are some good ideas that we can learn from these critics to help us improve MAID laws, though that is not their intent. They will oppose MAID under any law, no matter how carefully written.
Jim Waun, a retired anesthesiologist, shares some of his personal experiences that led him to support the Death With Dignity movement and the Final Exit Network (FEN), and he explains how FEN’s Exit Guide program works.
In his 2006 book about death with dignity and the right to die (The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia), Neil Gorsuch leveled several criticisms, by implication, against Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act (DWDA), a law that deals not at all with assisted suicide or euthanasia. Under the Oregon law, a person desiring a hastened death in the face of terminal illness may take his own life with a lethal prescription drug or drugs, unassisted by another person. Nevertheless, Gorsuch argues that we can’t determine the value of the DWDA for other jurisdictions without knowing how Oregon’s law is working in practice, and he asserts that we don’t have enough information about that.
A former Dominican priest shares his thoughts on ending life gracefully after a fruitful time on this earth.
The idea suggested by some disability rights advocates, that most of us will be disabled in one way or another by the time we reach the end of our lives, has been borne out in my experience. Virtually everyone I have known who has died has met, days or weeks or months before their deaths, the definition of disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. How can we assure that those who are disabled are not coerced into ending their lives too soon?
Understanding disagreements between DWD advocates and disability rights advocates may be a way to find some common ground between the two groups. This is Part 1 of a multi-part series exploring the issues.
All of the Death With Dignity (DWD) laws now in the US are modeled after the Oregon law that went into effect in 1997. The other jurisdictions that have adopted such a law include Washington, Vermont, Washington, D.C., Colorado, California, and Hawaii. A judicial decision in Montana allows DWD to be practiced with cooperating doctors.
Missing from all of these laws is the right of people who have specific kinds of incurable, debilitating, painful, or extremely distressing medical conditions, but are not necessarily within six months of dying, to use these laws.
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