There is an interesting peer-reviewed research published in OMEGA-Journal = of Death and Dying. Click here (https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228211033368) = to read the article – “Why People Think They Might Hasten Their Death When= Faced with Irremediable Health Conditions Compared to Why They Actually Do= So.” (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00302228211033368)
This is an extract:
Since Derek Humphry’s best-selling book in 1991, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide, public opinion on terminally ill patients seeking a hastened death has moved from wildly controversial to enormous public support, including now the majority of physicians (Humphry, 1991; Kane, 2020).
After initial concerns about potential harmful consequences for vulnerable populations proved unfounded (Lindsay, 2009; Albaladejo, 2019), more and more countries and states are passing legislation to support the public’s interest in being able to have control over the manner and timing of their own death when faced with irremediable health conditions.
Final Exit Network (FEN) is one of the organizations in the United States, alongside ten (and growing) state approved medical-aid-in-dying options, and other domestic and international groups and countries, that support end of life options. Examples of these organizations include Compassion and Choices, Death with Dignity, Dignitas, Exit International, and the World Federation of Right to Die Societies.
These programs continue to grow in number and provide resources for those seeking information about how to achieve a peaceful death rather than a drawn-out process of increasing frailty, violent gun options, or loss of quality of life and autonomy due to health conditions over which they otherwise have little or no control (Bellamy, 2017). Seniors ages 85 and older had the second-highest suicide rate in the United States in 2018, and firearms were used in 70.0% of them among seniors aged 65 and older (America’sHealthRankings, 2021; Mertens & Sorenson, 2012).
State-sponsored physician-aid-in-dying programs and informational organizations like the ones we have mentioned above aim to offer elders and others with intractable health conditions peaceful options when it comes to controlling their deaths. (end extract)
Updated ‘Final Exit’ paperback and ebook now at
