Assisted Suicide: Cheap Substitute for Care Stephanie Packer’s Story “I was stunned that much cheaper lethal drugs would be available to me rather than treatment to save my life, but fortunately, I eventually received coverage for the treatment I sought.” When in 2016 Stephanie, 32 and a mother of 4, was diagnosed with scleroderma, the

Physician-Assisted Death: Not an Acceptable Answer from the Medical Community   “We have an urgent responsibility to improve the experience of dying so no one feels the only option to maintain their dignity is to hasten their death.” Dr. Laura Petrillo works everyday with patients who are learning to live with chronic and terminal illness.

  Larry Smith, an inmate with throat cancer in Maine is enlisting the help of Maine’s so-called “Death With Dignity” law to end his life through assisted suicide.  Smith has Stage 2 throat cancer. A Stage 2 diagnosis is early and likely treatable. Smith is currently receiving treatment for his cancer while incarcerated. But in

Assisted Suicide: Deadly Discrimination John Kelly’s Story   “I emerged paralyzed below the shoulders. Individuals told me directly that they would rather be dead than like me, while movies and TV showed characters with my disability clamoring for death.” Since emerging paralyzed from a spinal cord injury more than 30 years ago, John has fought

Assisted Suicide: Abuses and Coercions   Ruthie Poole’s Story   “I am Ruthie Poole, president of M-POWER, a statewide group made up of people with lived experience of mental health diagnosis, trauma, and addiction. As people with psychiatric disabilities, M-POWER members feel passionate about the right to self-determination. However, that is not what assisted suicide

Starting in 2022, Austrians who are “chronically, seriously ill or have no prospect of recovery will be able to state their will to die” and be given suicide assistance. The article published by the Associated Press calls this allowance to die by assisted suicide “tightly limited”. These “tightly limited” allowances enable people with disabilities to

Assisted suicide is legal in California. Earlier this year, California adjusted one of its “safeguards” on the waiting period between the first request for lethal drugs and the second formal request. The original law maintained that the patient must wait 15 days between the first request and the second. California shortened that “safeguard” to a

Recently, The New York Times wrote about the assisted suicide debate being inflamed by Philip Nitschke’s suicide pod. Besides the disquieting thought of a personalized gas chamber invented by the man who wants to make suicide available to everyone without barriers, the Sarco pod does not actually ignite the debate on assisted suicide. The device

Assisted suicide is dangerous and discriminatory. One example of this is that some medical professionals decide which patients to give suicide prevention to and which patients to assist.  “Interviews with hospice staff in Washington in the US, where a form of medically assisted dying is available, found that they encountered different types of suicide, and

    Cancer Patients are Suffering From Mental Distress According to Healthline, research shows more than 80% of oncologists say they frequently see mental health distress in their patients; more than 90% of oncologists agree or strongly agree that mental health has a significant impact on cancer outcomes; approximately 93% of oncologists surveyed say they’ve

  The Devastating Reality of Suicide Contagion The New York Times investigative team talks about a disturbing discovery on an episode of The Daily podcast titled “Kids Are Dying How Are These Sites Still Allowed?” and a companion article called “Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die” The podcast is about websites that exist online where

Yesterday’s “safeguards”, which proponents use to get laws passed in the first place, become today’s obstacles. In January 2020, Oregon adjusted the safeguard requiring a 15-day waiting period between the formal request for lethal drugs and receiving the prescription. Starting in January 2022, California’s waiting period will be reduced from 15 days to a meager

  Assisted Suicide: Doctors Make Mistakes Tahni Morell and Family Story   “My late husband, Paul, fought an 8 year battle against colorectal cancer. Six of those years were after being given a Stage 4 diagnosis. Paul lived far longer than any prognosis ever given to him by his skilled doctors at Dana Farber in

Patients from around the world travel to Switzerland to end their lives at euthanasia clinics inside the country’s border. Erika Preisig, President at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic, and proponent of the practice calls the burden on doctors to choose which patients live and which die difficult, but justifies it with a quality of life

The first assisted suicide approved in Italy is a man with disabilities who was involved in a car accident ten years ago. What kind of precedent does this set for Italians with disabilities?  In the 2019 report by The National Council on Disability, it is clear that assisted suicide laws are rife with dangers to

Hospice and palliative care neither hasten nor prevent death, as founded by Dame Cicely Saunders. The vast majority of those who work in hospice and palliative care practice according to this philosophy. Assisted suicide proponents, however, are trying to co-opt this medical speciality and make killing patients part of relieving their pain. The top five