Category: Death With Dignity Act

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Opposition to medical-assistance-in-dying–Part 1

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. (Continue reading ...)
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Considering Gorsuch’s critique of Oregon’s DWDA

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. (Continue reading ...)
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DWD and disability–Part 2

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? (Continue reading ...)
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How DWD laws discriminate

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. (Continue reading ...)
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STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SUICIDOLOGY: “SUICIDE” IS NOT THE SAME AS “PHYSICIAN AID IN DYING”

The American Association of Suicidology recognizes that the practice of physician aid in dying, also called physician assisted suicide, Death with Dignity, and medical aid in dying, is distinct from the behavior that has been traditionally and ordinarily described as “suicide,” the tragic event our organization works so hard to prevent. Although there may be overlap between the two categories, legal physician assisted deaths should not be considered to be cases of suicide and are therefore a matter outside the central focus of the AAS. (Continue reading ...)
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