Barbara Coombs Lee

Last updated
Barbara Coombs Lee
Born1947 (age 73–74)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Vassar College
Cornell University
New York Hospital School of Nursing
University of Washington School of Public Health Medex Program
Lewis & Clark Law School
Occupation Senior Advisor of Compassion & Choices
Website http://www.compassionandchoices.org

Barbara Coombs Lee (born 1947) is an American activist, author, former family nurse practitioner and physician assistant, and president emerita/senior adviser of Compassion & Choices, [1] a national non-profit organization dedicated to expanding and protecting the rights of the terminally ill. [2]

Contents

Staffing the Oregon Senate Healthcare and Bioethics committee in 1991, Coombs Lee helped Oregon State Senator Frank L. Roberts as he proposed one of the first aid in dying laws in the nation. When Coombs Lee read in her church bulletin that congregants wanted to draft a Death with Dignity bill and place it before Oregon voters, she volunteered to help. She joined the Oregon Right to Die Political Action Committee that had already been working on draft bills, and was later selected, together with Elven Sinnard and Dr. Peter Goodwin, to be a chief petitioner who filed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act as a citizens' initiative in 1994. Coombs Lee served as spokesperson for the group through two statewide campaigns and 10 years defending against attacks on the nation's first Death with Dignity law in both the judicial and legislative arenas. Senator Roberts' wife, Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts, became a good friend and a tireless and outspoken advocate for Death with Dignity.

Under Coombs Lee's leadership, since 1996 as president of Compassion in Dying (which became Compassion & Choices in 2005), the end-of-life choice movement has achieved many milestones. In 2008, Coombs Lee was a senior advisor for the Washington State Death with Dignity ballot initiative that voters approved by an 18-point margin, becoming the second state to legalize aid in dying. In 2009, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case brought by Compassion & Choices ( Baxter v. Montana ) that it is not against the state's public policy for a physician to provide aid in dying to a mentally competent, terminally ill adult. [3] As of January 2019, eight jurisdictions have authorized aid in dying, including Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii. [4] [5]

In January 2019, Coombs Lee published Finish Strong: Putting Your Priorities First at Life’s End, a 294-page memoir and guide for transforming the end-of-life experience by giving readers a sense of their own authority—empowering them to ask questions, test assumptions, and decide on a course of treatment that honors the character and meaning of their lives. [6]

Coombs Lee has been interviewed by many of the nation's leading media outlets, including Bloomberg News, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, All Things Considered, The Diane Rehm Show, NBC News, Crossfire, 60 Minutes, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, The Today Show, On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying, and The Dr. Oz Show.

Coombs Lee has presented at TEDx Talks, Stanford MedicineX, CUSP Conference, Plato Society, American Bar Association, Older Women's League, American Pain Society, Oregon State Bar, Cleveland City Club, Americans for Better Care of the Dying, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Pain Society, and the World Federation Right to Die Societies. Her audiences include the Oregon Gerontological Association and the California Nurse Assembly & Education Conference. Her 1999 debate Doctor Assisted Suicide: Compassionate Alternative or Murder with James Bopp, Jr., was produced the Annenberg Public Policy Center for Public Radio. [7]

Coombs Lee studied literature at Vassar College and nursing at The New York Hospital-Cornell School of Nursing, [8] and earned advanced certification in medicine from the School of Public Health Medex Program (Physician Assistant) and a JD from Lewis & Clark Law School. She is an inactive member of the Oregon State Bar. [9]

Books

Publications

Related Research Articles

Assisted suicide Suicide undertaken with aid from another person

Assisted suicide is suicide undertaken with the aid of another person. The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is suicide that is assisted by a physician or other healthcare provider. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifies under the physician-assisted suicide laws for that place, 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 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.

Terminal illness or end-stage disease is a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and is reasonably expected to result in the death of the patient. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as cancer or advanced heart disease than for trauma. In popular use, it indicates a disease that will progress until death with near absolute certainty, regardless of treatment. A patient who has such an illness may be referred to as a terminal patient, terminally ill or simply as being terminal. There is no standardized life expectancy for a patient to be considered terminal, although it is generally months or less. Life expectancy for terminal patients is a rough estimate given by the physician based on previous data and does not always reflect true longevity. An illness which is lifelong but not fatal is a chronic condition.

Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization in the United States working to improve patient rights and individual choice at the end of life, including access to medical aid in dying. Its primary function is advocating for and ensuring access to end-of-life options.

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 (1942-1991), 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 B.C., as described in Plato's Phaedo.

Euthanasia is the practice of intentionally ending someone's life to relieve pain and suffering.

Dignity in Dying

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.

Legality of euthanasia

The legality of euthanasia varies depending on the country. Efforts to change government policies on euthanasia of humans in the 20th and 21st centuries have met limited success in Western countries. Human euthanasia policies have also been developed by a variety of NGOs, most notably medical associations and advocacy organizations. As of November 2021, euthanasia is legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and several states of Australia. Euthanasia was briefly legal in the Northern Territory between 1996 and 1997, but was overturned by a federal law. In 2021, a Peruvian court allowed euthanasia for a single person, Ana Estrada.

Kathryn Tucker

Kathryn Tucker is an American attorney and the executive director of the End of Life Liberty Project, which she founded during her tenure as executive director of the Disability Rights Legal Center. She graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1985 and Hampshire College in 1981. Tucker has been an adjunct law professor at Lewis and Clark School of Law, Seattle University the University of Washington, Loyola/LA and Hastings. Beginning in 1990, while an attorney at the Seattle firm of Perkins Coie, she did pro bono work for Washington Citizens for Death with Dignity, which led her into the movement to expand end of life liberty.

Washington Death with Dignity Act Ballot measure in Washington legalizing some assisted suicide

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.

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 in the United States End of life with help from another person

Assisted suicide is defined as suicide with the aid of another person, sometimes a doctor. 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 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 "aid in dying".

Compassionate release is a process by which inmates in criminal justice systems may be eligible for immediate early release on grounds of "particularly extraordinary or compelling circumstances which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the court at the time of sentencing". Compassionate release procedures, which are also known as medical release, medical parole, medical furlough and humanitarian parole, can be mandated by the courts or by internal corrections authorities. Unlike regular parole, compassionate release is not based on a prisoner's behavior or sentencing, but on medical or humanitarian changes in the prisoner's situation.

<i>Baxter v. Montana</i> Montana Supreme Court decision ruling physician-assisted dying is not illegal

Baxter v. Montana, is a Montana Supreme Court case, argued on September 2, 2009, and decided on December 31, 2009, that addressed the question of whether the state's constitution guaranteed terminally ill patients a right to lethal prescription medication from their physicians. The Montana Supreme Court sidestepped the question of if medical aid in dying is guaranteed under Montana State Constitution, but it instead ruled, on narrower grounds, that neither legal precedent nor the state's statute deem such assistance to be against public policy or illegal. Montana is one of nine states in which aid in dying is authorized. The others are California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington: it is authorized in the District of Columbia as well.

Death with Dignity National Center

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.

2012 Massachusetts Question 2

The Massachusetts "Death with Dignity" Initiative, also known as Question 2, appeared on the November 6, 2012 general election ballot in the state of Massachusetts as an indirect initiated state statute to allow physician-assisted suicide. The measure was filed with the Massachusetts Attorney General and would establish, according to those who filed the measure, an "Act Relative to Death with Dignity". The petition number for the initiative was 11-12, and was filed by Michael Clarke as "An Initiative Petition for an Act Relative to Death with Dignity".

Brittany Maynard American activist

Brittany Lauren Maynard was an American activist with terminal cancer who decided that she would end her own life "when the time seemed right." She was an advocate for the legalization of assisted death.

Act 39 of 2013 established the U.S. state of Vermont's Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act, which legalizes medical aid in dying with certain restrictions. Vermont was the first state to enact this Law through legislative action; it permits some terminally ill patients to determine the time of their own death.

California End of Life Option Act is a law enacted in June 2016 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

  1. ↑ "Barbara Coombs Lee, PA, FNP, JD - President" . Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  2. ↑ Seligman, Katherine (8 June 2008). "Hastening the End In the face of painful, debilitating illness, some people turn to end-of-life consultants as they plan for death". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 24 February 2010.
  3. ↑ Browning, Skylar. "Montana leads the way in end-of-life choice". The Missoula Independent. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  4. ↑ "With D.C. and California laws in jeopardy, a fresh debate over medical aid in dying". USA Today. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  5. ↑ "The assisted-dying movement gathers momentum in America". The Economist. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  6. ↑ "Former nurse and physician assistant authors book on taboo topic of how to live your value and die peacefully". L.A. Biz. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  7. ↑ "Compassion or Killing: Doctor Assisted Suicide". Justice Talking. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  8. ↑ "Cornell Nursing School Honors Compassion & Choices President" . Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  9. ↑ "Oregon State Bar: Barbara Coombs Lee". Oregon Bar Association. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  10. ↑ "Finish Strong: Putting Your Priorities First at Life's End". Compassion & Choices. Retrieved 17 January 2019.[ permanent dead link ]
  11. ↑ "Compassion in Dying: Stories of Dignity and Choice". NewSage Press. Archived from the original on 28 October 2016. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
  12. ↑ "A Pioneer for Death With Dignity". New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
  13. ↑ "Barbara Coombs Lee on Huffington Post" . Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  14. ↑ "Oregon's experience with aid-in-dying: findings from the death with dignity laboratory" (PDF). Compassion & Choices. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 September 2016. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
  15. ↑ "Uninformed Consent, Unshared Decision-Making in the ICU". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
  16. ↑ "Compassionate Advocacy Dedicated to Improving the Care and Expanding the Options of the Terminally Ill". uuworld.org. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.