Consistently, one of the top reasons patients request assisted suicide is fear of becoming a burden on their family, friends and caregivers (Oregon Health Data). A new study by a pair of Harvard Business School researchers finds that employers underestimate, to their detriment, the struggle their...
Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) are increasingly being legalized and primarily involve patients with cancer. Oncologists who care for persons with advanced, terminal cancer and who practice in jurisdictions where PAS/physician aid in dying (PAS/PAD) is legal now face individual decisions whether to endorse...
An intensive care doctor ordered "significantly excessive and potentially fatal" doses of pain medicine for at least 27 near-death patients in the past few years after families asked that lifesaving measures be stopped, an Ohio hospital system announced after being sued by a family alleging an improper dose of...
Lars Larson speaks with Kristen Hanson, Community Relations Advocate for Patients Rights Action Fund, to share her and her husband’s story to advocate for better end-of-life care for terminal patients. His illness gave them firsthand insights into how assisted suicide endangers those who are most vulnerable. Click here...
The World Medical Association (WMA) was founded in 1947, in part to work for the highest possible standards of ethical behaviour and care among phy- sicians. This was considered particularly important after the gross ethical violations observed, by physicians themselves during the Second World War...
In our broken, profit-driven healthcare system, vulnerable people are at risk of deadly harm when insurers and providers put the bottom line above true patient care. According to Axios, 'Health care executives gave no indication to bankers and investors at this year's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference...
A Nova Scotia Catholic congregation, thrust into a controversy about the right to die, is confident its policy will endure. The Sisters of St. Martha has an agreement with the Nova Scotia government, forbidding medical assistance in dying, at Saint Martha’s Hospital in Antigonish, N.S. “It is named in...
Palliative care is a type of care provided to patients with serious illness, such as cancer. This care can reduce symptoms, improve quality of life and may make it possible to continue with cancer treatment. The goal is to prevent or treat the symptoms of...
Two Quebecers suffering from incurable degenerative diseases are in court today challenging provincial and federal laws that have left them ineligible for medically assisted death. Jean Truchon and Nicole Gladu don’t qualify to have a physician end their lives because, despite their suffering, they are not at the end...
A year ago, I lost my 36-year-old husband to cancer. In the first few months after his death, I often felt lost without the heroic man I fell in love with 14 years earlier. But in our last few weeks together, I promised J.J. that...
They received the same diagnosis—and chose two very different paths J.J. Hanson—a loving husband, father, and Marine—was diagnosed in spring 2014 with grade 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme, the deadliest form of brain cancer. He was right in the prime of his life. This aggressive cancer was the same...
Hawaii's new medically assisted suicide law has gone into effect, but few doctors and pharmacies are willing to prescribe and dispense the life-ending medications. Hawaii Pacific Health and The Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu said their pharmacies will not fill the prescriptions and hospitalized patients will...
A central question raised by Yager et al1 is whether it is ethical for psychiatrists to be involved in competency assessments in the context of so-called “physician assisted death.” (We endorse, and herein employ, the terminology advocated by the American College of Physicians and the American...
Nova Scotia's only Catholic hospital is at risk of being found in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights legislation by refusing to provide medical assistance in dying, a Halifax law professor says. St. Martha's Regional Hospital in Antigonish, N.S., is a...
In a recent Wicked Local Lexington commentary (“Medical aid in dying important for some with disabilities,” Sept. 28), Michael Martignetti argues for the legalization of assisted suicide from the perspective of someone with the progressive neurological disability, Friedrichs ataxia. I can relate to the author’s...
by Shane E. Macaulay, MD The American Medical Association, and the entire profession of medicine in the U.S., stand at a crucial ethical crossroads. For two years the AMA has been considering the question of physician-assisted suicide (PAS): shall physician assistance with patient suicide now be considered...
In his 29 years as chief executive officer of Hospice Maui, LaGoy said he has often heard incoming patients talk about wanting to end their lives early because they imagine all the suffering that lies ahead. But he said that two big things usually happen...
I was very saddened to read the March 6 editorial in The Enterprise in support of physician-assisted suicide. I am troubled that the terminology has been softened to “medical aid in dying,” which implied to me palliative care, which accompanies people in their passage from...
One of this legislative session’s most controversial bills has been tabled for the 2019 legislative session. House Bill 90 would have created measures permitting medical aid in dying for terminally ill but mentally competent patients who request such help. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Deborah Armstrong, D-Albuquerque,...
The New Mexico End-of-life Options Act, which the Legislature rejected in 2017 but has been considering again this year, is woefully misnamed. Options will become fewer should this bill become law, because the only course of action it facilitates is death. The bill does nothing to...
There are many options already available to patients in New Jersey at the end of life; assisted suicide should not be one of them. Hospice and palliative care are underutilized resources for the terminally ill, and in the case of palliative interventions, the chronically ill as...
In 2019, the New York Legislature will once again consider a bill to permit healthcare providers to give lethal prescriptions to adults who are deemed terminally ill and ask to die. Despite lack of success in the past, proponents will use myths in arguing that...
In January 1993, my husband Kenny was diagnosed with tongue cancer. As a veteran of the New York City Fire Department, he had been exposed to toxins that caused his squamous cell carcinoma. Doctors thought Kenny would be dead in less than five years. He...
Nevada lawmakers are once again considering legislation to allow terminal patients to kill themselves with medication prescribed by a doctor...
The measure would allow adults to obtain a prescription for life-ending drugs, if a doctor finds they have six months or less to live. ...
I’m urging Nevadans to oppose doctor-assisted suicide. It's back every legislative session, like a bad dream that just won’t end. As a disability-rights advocate, I am concerned about choice, self-determination and bodily autonomy and that is why I am opposed to the legalization of doctor-assisted suicide. Unfortunately,...
Sometimes good intentions can create more problems than they solve. Take Senate Bill 165 for example. Nevada lawmakers held hearings recently on this bill that would legalize and tightly regulate physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. The bill would allow competent adults diagnosed to be within...