Related Research Articles
Assisted suicide - alternately referred to as medical aid in dying - means a procedure in which people take medications to end their own lives with the help of others, usually medical professionals. The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is an end of life measure for a person suffering a painful, terminal illness. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifies under the physician-assisted suicide laws for that location, the physician's assistance is usually limited to writing a prescription for a lethal dose of drugs.
The right to die is a concept based on the opinion that human beings are entitled to end their life or undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood that a person with a terminal illness, incurable pain, or without the will to continue living, should be allowed to end their own life, use assisted suicide, or to decline life-prolonging treatment. The question of who, if anyone, may be empowered to make this decision is often the subject of debate.
Measure 16 of 1994 established the U.S. state of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which legalizes medical aid in dying with certain restrictions. Passage of this initiative made Oregon the first U.S. state and one of the first jurisdictions in the world to permit some terminally ill patients to determine the time of their own death.
Final Exit is a 1991 book written by Derek Humphry, a British-born American journalist, author, and assisted suicide advocate who co-founded the now-defunct Hemlock Society in 1980 and co-founded the Final Exit Network in 2004. The book was first published in 1991 by the Hemlock Society US in hardback. The following year, its 2nd edition was published by Dell in trade paperback. The current updated edition was published in 2010.
Voluntary euthanasia is the ending of a person's life at their request in order to relieve them of suffering. Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in recent years.
Derek Humphry is a British-born American journalist and author notable as a proponent of legal assisted suicide and the right to die. In 1980, he co-founded the Hemlock Society and, in 2004, after that organization dissolved, he co-founded Final Exit Network. From 1988 to 1990, he was president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies and is the current president of the Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization (ERGO).
The Hemlock Society was an American right-to-die and assisted suicide advocacy organization which existed from 1980 to 2003. It was co-founded in Santa Monica, California by British author and activist Derek Humphry, his wife Ann Wickett Humphry and Gerald A. Larue. It relocated to Oregon in 1988 and, according to Humphry, had several homes over the course of its life. The group took its name from Conium maculatum, a highly poisonous biennial herbaceous flowering plant in the carrot family. The name was a direct reference to the method by which the Athenian philosopher Socrates took his life in 399 BC, as described in Plato's Phaedo.
The World Federation of Right to Die Societies is an international federation of associations that promote access to voluntary euthanasia. It holds regular international meetings on dying and death.
Final Exit Network, Inc. (FEN) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit right to die advocacy group incorporated under Florida law. It holds that mentally competent adults who suffer from a terminal illness, intractable pain, or irreversible physical conditions have a right to voluntarily end their lives. In cases deemed valid, Final Exit Network arranges what it refers to as "self deliverances". Typically, the network assigns two "exit guides" to a client and are present when they die, but the network states, and has proven in court, that it does not provide physical assistance in anyone's death; rather, their role is that of compassionate advisors and witnesses.
The International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that concerns itself with the issues of euthanasia, doctor-prescribed suicide, advance directives, assisted suicide proposals, "right-to-die" cases, disability rights, pain control, and related bioethical issues. They oppose the legalization of euthanasia. The executive director of the Task Force is lawyer Rita Marker, author of Deadly Compassion: The Death of Ann Humphry and the Truth About Euthanasia, which puts forth an account of the death of the wife of euthanasia advocate Derek Humphry. In January 2011, The International Task Force changed its name to The Patients Rights Council. Their Frank Reed Memorial Library maintains the most and up-to-date collection in the world of books as well as periodical, newspaper and professional journal articles devoted to euthanasia, doctor-prescribed suicide and end-of-life issues.
Dignity in Dying is a United Kingdom nationwide campaigning organisation. It is funded by voluntary contributions from members of the public, and as of December 2010, it claimed to have 25,000 actively subscribing supporters. The organisation declares it is independent of any political, religious or other affiliations, and has the stated primary aim of campaigning for individuals to have greater choice and more control over end-of-life decisions, so as to alleviate any suffering they may be undergoing as they near the end of their life.
Barbara Coombs Lee is an American activist, author, former family nurse practitioner and physician assistant, and president emerita/senior adviser of Compassion & Choices, a national non-profit organization dedicated to expanding and protecting the rights of the terminally ill.
Initiative 1000 (I-1000) of 2008 established the U.S. state of Washington's Death with Dignity Act, which legalizes medical aid in dying with certain restrictions. Passage of this initiative made Washington the second U.S. state to permit some terminally ill patients to determine the time of their own death. The effort was headed by former Governor Booth Gardner.
Suicide tourism, or euthanasia tourism, is the practice of potential suicide candidates travelling to a jurisdiction to die by suicide or assisted suicide which is legal in some jurisdictions, or the practice of travelling to a jurisdiction in order to obtain drugs that can aid in the process of ending one's own life.
Euthanasia became legal in New Zealand when the End of Life Choice Act 2019 took full effect on 7 November 2021. It is illegal to "aid and abet suicide" under Section 179 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961. The clauses of this act make it an offence to "incite, procure or counsel" and "aid and abet" someone else to commit suicide, regardless of whether a suicide attempt is made or not. Section 179 covers both coercion to undertake assisted suicide and true suicide, such as that caused by bullying. This will not change under the End of Life Choices Act 2019, which has provisions on coercion of terminally ill people.
Assisted suicide is suicide with the aid of another person. In the United States, the term "assisted suicide" is typically used to describe what proponents refer to as medical aid in dying, in which terminally ill adults are prescribed and self-administer barbiturates if they feel that they are suffering significantly. The term is often used interchangeably with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), "physician-assisted dying", "physician-assisted death", "assisted death" and "medical aid in dying" (MAiD).
Jean's Way, a book by Derek Humphry, is an account of Humphry's terminally ill wife's planned suicide from suffering. The book is his first on the issue of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Death with Dignity National Center is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan nonprofit organization, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, that has led the legal defense of and education about Death with Dignity laws throughout the United States for more than 25 years. The Death with Dignity National Center helped write and defend in courts the nation's first successful assisted dying law, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, protecting the right of persons with terminal illness to control their own death. The Death with Dignity National Center is affiliated with the Death with Dignity Political Fund, a distinct and separately incorporated 501(c)(4) organization responsible for the promotion of death with dignity legislation in other states around the U.S.
Exit is a not-for-profit, pro-euthanasia organisation based in Scotland that lobbies for and provides information about voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide. It has particularly focused on research and publication of works which provide information about suicide methods, including How to Die With Dignity, the first book published on the subject.
California End of Life Option Act is a law enacted in June 2016 by the California State Legislature which allows terminally ill adult residents in the state of California to access medical aid in dying by self-administering lethal drugs, provided specific circumstances are met. The law was signed in by California governor Jerry Brown in October 2015, making California the fifth state to allow physicians to prescribe drugs to end the life of a terminally ill patient, often referred to as physician-assisted suicide.
References
- ↑ Ziegler, Stephen J; Bosshard, Georg (10 February 2007). "Role of non-governmental organisations in physician assisted suicide". British Medical Journal . 334 (7588): 295–8. doi:10.1136/bmj.39100.417072.be. PMC 1796670 . PMID 17289733.
- ↑ The organization has worked for recognition of a difference between the terms "assisted suicide" and "legal physician aid in dying" in the criminal code. For example, Oregon law draws a distinction between "suicide" and "aid in dying" for criminal purposes. ORS 127.880 §3.14 "Compassion & Choices". Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2010-03-01.[ better source needed ]
- ↑ "End of Life Planning and Paliative Care - Compassion & Choices". compassionandchoices.org. Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2009-09-14.
- ↑ James, Susan Donaldson (February 13, 2014). "Philly Nurse Exonerated in Assisted Death of Her Terminally Ill Father". ABC News . Retrieved May 12, 2016.
- ↑ Barnes, Brook (24 January 2011). "Unflinching End-of-Life Moments". New York Times. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
