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.
A dialogue about the right to die in interview format between the blog editor and a woman who has lived over four decades as a paraplegic.
How the Final Exit Network works to make hastening one's own death a rational endeavor–a review of the process.
Thanks to everyone who made suggestions to deal with Jane's presumptive problems (see previous post). If Jane had an independent social worker–one not in her healthcare system–that person might respond to Jane's difficulties with something like the following:
Huck DeVenzio, FEN's Newsletter Editor, explains the role of volunteers within FEN and the need for volunteers.
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.
Jim Waun, a retired anesthesiologist, shares some of his personal experiences that led him to support the Death With Dignity movement and the Final Exit Network (FEN), and he explains how FEN's Exit Guide program works.
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?
Nearly everyone hopes for a peaceful death; yet such an end can be elusive. Many of us face both philosophical and practical questions as we do what we can to make our own deaths peaceful.
Some of us may have religious questions. Judaism, like many other religions, is all over the map in its thinking about ways to achieve a peaceful death.
