We must ensure we do everything we can to help people with psychiatric disorders live better lives rather than offering better ways of dying. The Quebec Superior Court’s decision to strike down the restriction that limited assisted dying to terminally ill patients, i.e., the clause that...
The National Council on Disability (NCD) released a new report highlighting the dangers of legalizing assisted suicide for the disability community. The NCD also issued a series of recommendations for departments across the government while reaffirming its stance that assisted suicide should not be legal...
Dear Friends, An Assisted Suicide Report released last night by the National Council on Disability (NCD) to the President of the United States is a major and important element in our efforts to keep lethal drugs out of our states and communities. Many thanks to NCD...
The assisted suicide debate ultimately distracts medical professionals like me from pursuing dignified health care options at the end of life. I wholeheartedly believe Minnesota can become the hub of innovative palliative care and hospice care. Granting the “right” of patients to receive pills that...
I sympathize with Bobbi Jacobsen (“I have ALS, and I hope for a dignified death,” Opinion Exchange, Sept. 24). Like her, I became severely disabled as an adult. But I oppose assisted suicide: It’s too dangerous. Assisted suicide can look appealing from an individual’s perspective, but...
A national organization that advocates for adults with intellectual disabilities is calling the recent medically assisted death of a man at Chilliwack General Hospital (CGH) distressing and an “injustice.” Alan Nichols was admitted to CGH in June of this year suffering from dehydration and malnourishment. The Canadian...
I am an adult psychiatrist who has worked in public sector psychiatry in the US and the UK. In both countries, physicians struggle with the ethics and professional meaning of legalized or proposed physician-assisted suicide (PAS). I was recently asked by an organization to host...
Serious concerns have been raised about the implementation of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation after a 61-year-old depressed but otherwise healthy man was euthanised in the province of British Columbia. Alan Nichols, a former school janitor who lived alone and struggled with depression, was admitted...
Legislation has once again been introduced in Wisconsin to legalize assisted suicide. If passed, Wisconsin legislators risk unnecessarily endangering the lives of people with disabilities. “Assisted suicide presents a clear and present danger to the many people who struggle to access quality health care either because...
The recent court decision in Quebec that invalidated the "reasonably foreseeable" death clause of both the federal and Quebec assisted suicide laws laid the foundation for further legal challenges in the expansion of Canada's assisted suicide laws. Opponents of assisted suicide often warn of the...