Rethinking dementia and the end of life
"I predict that as more people suffer from dementing illnesses, we will undoubtably cross a threshold and finally witness significant changes." -- Lewis Cohen, MD (Continue reading ...)
How my position, as a physician, on medical aid in dying changed
A family practice physician explains why she changed her mind about Medical Aid in Dying. (Continue reading ...)
Debunking falsehoods about Death with Dignity
"Opponents of Death-with-Dignity (DWD) laws use several falsehoods in their attempts to prevent legislation from passing. We believe policy decisions affecting people with terminal illness should be made based on evidence and the actual content of the legislation." (Continue reading ...)
Medical Aid In Dying
"New legislation and court judgments are further expanding access to MAID, some bringing new and different twists." (Continue reading ...)
Hospice And Medical Aid-in-Dying: Addressing An Unethical Disconnect
"One facility used the term “provider-hastened death” and stated that it encompasses euthanasia." (Continue reading ...)
Physician-Assisted Suicide: Should You Have A Fundamental Right To Control Your Own Death?
"What is fundamentally the difference between a doctor pulling a plug on a machine that provides lifesaving nutrients to a person that could potentially stay 'alive' on it for years, and a doctor prescribing pills to a person with mere days or months to live to end their unnecessary suffering?" (Continue reading ...)
Pro Choice To The End Of Life
"Why would an anti-MAiD activist try to force a patient about whom they know nothing, to live by the activist’s personal values rather than the patient’s own?" (Continue reading ...)
Respecting End-of-Life Choice: The Art of the Possible
Advocates, supporters, and champions (of MAiD) need to decide if it is better to have a law that is less than ideal … or have no law at all? Is something better than nothing? (Continue reading ...)
Medical Aid In Dying Is Still Called “Assisted Suicide”; An Anthropologist Explains The Problem With That
It’s time that we revise and refine our cultural lexicon around this emergent end-of-life practice. A medically assisted death definitively warrants a linguistic and conceptual category of its own. (Continue reading ...)
Quality Of Life At The End Of Life
The lawsuit does not attack the right of patients to access medical aid in dying, which is the heart of the bill. Rather, it challenges provisions of the law that require providers to inform patients of the availability of medical aid in dying, and to refer those patients to a willing provider if the patient’s primary provider is unable or is unwilling for any reason. (Continue reading ...)