In the nine states/jurisdictions in which medical assistance in dying (MAID) is allowed through legislation or referendum, the insistence on extensive safeguards has served less to protect vulnerable individuals than to limit access to MAID.
Most dementia directives call for voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) at a prescribed point late in the progression of dementia. In most cases, this requires eliminating hand feeding based on the proposition that hand feeding is a medical treatment or medical care.
A 30-year old Florida Supreme Court decision may provide support for the use of a dementia directive that provides for voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED).
This post, Part 3 of a series on dementias directives, discusses the supplemental advance directive for dementia offered by Final Exit Network (FEN) for those people who do NOT want to live into the later stages of dementia. The FEN dementia directive was drafted by FEN's legal counsel, Robert Rivas.
Part 1 of this multi-part analysis identifies eight Dementia Directives by authorship and discusses overall characteristics of each. This second part analyses the approaches to drafting such directives to help readers think about the elements of each.
This post begins a multi-part series about dementia directives, analyzing their provisions and their purposes.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, distinguished oncologist and bioethicist, a vice provost at the University of Pennsylvania, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, an author and editor in the health care field, wants to die at age 75. Why would he make such a decision in what many would see as the prime of his life?
Healthcare surrogates are always important, but their role has become more difficult during the Covid-19 pandemic. Read about what can be done in this situation.
“National Healthcare Decisions Day” is Thursday, April 16, a day meant to encourage Americans to think about Advance Care Planning. Making plans for the possibility of a serious and even life-threatening illness is now a difficult reality in uncertain times.
We are all in the high-risk category for death because all living things die. However, each of us hopes to live a long, productive (however defined), satisfying life in the meantime. Covid-19 is causing many of us to reassess how long we may have left.
