Alzheimer’s

May 21

How DWD laws discriminate

By Lamar Hankins | Death With Dignity Act, Suffering and Death | 6 Comments

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.

Oct 16

Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 2

By Lamar Hankins | Dementia | 3 Comments

In Part 1 of this essay, I introduced two competing arguments concerning using advance directives to control what is done to our bodies should we become mentally incompetent.

As explained previously, the sole purpose of advance directives is to record one’s decisions about medical and related care if a person becomes unable to make such decisions later because of mental incapacity. To explain the range of options that are available both before and after such incapacity, I’ll use a personal example.