Victoria has become the first Australian jurisdiction to legally empower doctors to intentionally kill a patient or to provide a patient with the means to kill themselves. The new law will allow a person who has been “ordinarily resident” in Victoria for at least 12 months,...
The debate over assisted suicide continues. A bill has not passed in New York yet, but it keeps getting reintroduced every session in the legislature. Its proponents everywhere keep using a catchphrase, "death with dignity," to describe it. They even use it as a title...
Dear Friends, There has been an overwhelming outpouring of love and encouragement from our community. Many have asked to send a card. Please feel free to use this address: Mr. & Mrs. JJ & Kris Hanson c/o Mr. Jim Hanson PO Box 11 Yulan, NY 12792 Thanks very much for all...
Dear Friends and Colleagues, I write with some grave news. JJ Hanson, our president and terminal brain cancer patient-advocate, who has outlived a 4-month prognosis by over 3 years, was admitted to Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC, where they took an MRI yesterday. The cancer has...
The Massachusetts Medical Society has rescinded its opposition to physician-assisted society and adopted a "neutral engagement" position so it may serve as a medical and scientific resource for legislators. The state Legislature is considering an "end of life options" act. The MMS has had a policy against...
The Vermont Medical Society (VMS) recently became the eighth state medical association — the ninth if one counts the group for Washington, DC — to depart from the profession's long-standing opposition to physician-assisted dying. The VMS was playing catch-up with state lawmakers. In 2013, the Vermont...
The medical profession has an “ethical imperative” to say assisted suicide is not how you alleviate suffering, an Oireachtas committee has been told. Prof Des O’Neill, of the school of medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, said the State and many charities worked together to prevent suicide...
“You matter because of who you are. You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can , not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.” – Dame Cicely Saunders, Physician, nurse, social worker,...
Euthanasia costs lives. Not only do doctors kill people who ask to die–generally without even attempting suicide prevention services–but the ethics-altering values of euthanasia/assisted suicide devalue despairing lives generally. For example, several years ago, a woman named Kerrie Woolterton in the UK swallowed anti-freeze and called an...
An Australian state parliament on Wednesday stepped closer to passing a voluntary euthanasia bill, 20 years after the country repealed the world's first mercy-killing law for the terminally ill. The Victorian Legislative Council passed the bill on doctor-assisted suicide 22 votes to 18, after hours of...