Tag

assisted suicide

Opposition to medical-assistance-in-dying–Part 3

By | Death With Dignity Act | 3 Comments

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.”

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Opposition to medical-assistance-in-dying–Part 2

By | Death With Dignity Act | 2 Comments

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.

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Biologist Jerry Coyne discusses mental illness and assisted suicide

By | Mental Illness | One Comment

Jerry Coyne, Ph.D., an American biologist recently published a post on his blog titled “Thought for the day: On mental illness and assisted suicide,” discussing the topic just after the suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.  In the post, he includes a video of Adam Maier-Clayton, a former frequent contributor to FEN’s Facebook page, where his death in April 2017 was announced with both sadness and understanding.

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STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SUICIDOLOGY: “SUICIDE” IS NOT THE SAME AS “PHYSICIAN AID IN DYING”

By | Death With Dignity Act, Medical Aid in Dying | 3 Comments

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.

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Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 3

By | Dementia | 2 Comments

 “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
                                                                                — John Stuart Mill

The United States Constitution and the common law (along with some state constitutions) give us the right to make directives that control the health services we receive if we become mentally incapacitated. The instructions provided by most states in the statutory forms that have been approved since the late 1980s do not limit us. We can write non-statutory directives I call “supplemental directives” when they are attached to and referenced in the statutory directives. We can also write our own health care directives without using statutory forms (an issue to be discussed in a subsequent post).

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When free speech is a crime in Minnesota

By | Free speech | 3 Comments

In May 2015, the non-profit corporation Final Exit Network, Inc. was convicted of assisting in the 2007 suicide of Doreen Dunn. In that state, “assisting” does not require any physical act. The Minnesota Supreme Court decided that if speaking to another person about how to commit suicide “enables” that person to take her own life, the speech meets the definition of “assist” as found in the Minnesota statute that prohibits “assisting suicide.”

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