Assisted-Dying Blog

In the past five years or so, at least 50 persons have escorted relatives and friends from the UK to Zurich, Switzerland – to the Dignitas flat there, for an assisted suicide. Most of these individuals are known to the police, and many of them have been questioned by the police upon their return to […]

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My comment re the doctor and two nurses charged with murder in New Orleans after the hurricane: It is my opinion that sometimes, in the harsh, real world in which we can find ourselves, so-called mercy killing is justifiable. Sometimes. It seems to me that this New Orleans hospital medical team was placed in a […]

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The Los Angeles Times printed the following thoughtful article on friends helping each other to die. It has also been syndicated to many other newspapers. At death’s window – June 25, 2006 By Anne Lamott / Anne Lamott is a novelist and essayist. Her latest book is “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith,” recently released […]

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COPY OF LETTER TO THE EDITOR “The Washington Times” from Derek Humphry Columnist Nat Hentoff should ruminate on Shakespeare having King Henry V saying on the eve of Agincourt: “Old men forget,” for in his June 12 article “The devaluing of human life” Nat has got his dates all mixed up with regard to me. […]

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Some years ago I was sitting in the High Court of Appeals in London listening to a euthanasia case. Part of the evidence was that the man had paid a call at the offices of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, in Chelsea. All he got there was information, certainly not assisted death. The defendant’s lawyer argued […]

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As he sits in jail, Dr Jack Kevorkian may have had a change of heart — not about his dedication to the “death with dignity” movement, but on how he went about promoting it. Specifically, his lawyer suggests, he questions the more than 100 suicides he said he assisted throughout the 1990s. One assisted suicide […]

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Read the fine argument in Sunday’s Observer (London) making the case for the Bill before the House of Lords making physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill available. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1769395,00.htm Literature on this subject available at ERGO Bookstore

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Could there be a license to die ? Would it help relieve terminal suffering by putting everybody on notice that a person was coming to the end of their life? Emails to the ERGO List started this unusual debate:- To begin with, Derek Humphry wrote: The report for 2005 on the state’s physician-assisted suicide law […]

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Bishops of the Church of England have come together with the Roman Catholic Church in launching a campaign to prevent the legalisation of ‘assisted suicide‘ this week. The Roman Catholic attempt to distribute half a million anti-euthanasia leaflets and DVDs to each of their parishes in England and Wales is the biggest political campaign by […]

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The Guardian newspaper in London reported (but few if any US newspapers did):- Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship · Sandra Day O’Connor warns of rightwing attacks · Lawyers ‘must speak up’ to protect judiciary Julian Borger in Washington, Monday March 13, 2006, Guardian Sandra Day O’Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who […]

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