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Invitation to a broad ranging conference on choices in dying

Dec 7th, 2017 by

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE FINAL EXIT NETWORK:
Join us! Dying in the Americas 2018 conference
Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort, Henderson, NV

Benefactors and supporters of the right to die movement invite you to attend Dying in the Americas 2018, a conference dedicated to understanding the handicaps in the success of death with dignity in all of the Americas with a focus on how we can learn from our counterparts in Canada, Latin America, and the U.S.

What will the future hold? Is there a way to have death with dignity without changing our laws? What are our options for expanding laws to serve those who do not fall within current U.S. laws? Is there hope that we can follow in the footsteps of Canada? How can we all achieve a peaceful death?

This conference is sponsored by benefactors, a bequest in honor of David Denton, PhD, and support from the board of Final Exit Network.
Discounted conference and hotel registration rates will end on January 14, 2018. Space is limited for the conference and hotel room block (you must complete conference registration in order to be eligible for hotel registration).

Everyone interested in this important topic will benefit. Hear from new and important voices in the movement. Learn from each other with the hope of framing the future with new and visionary ideas from health care, religious, and legal professionals. We invite you to join the conversation.

Help us come up with ideas for the future – based on current information, new knowledge, and visionary plans. And most of all, meet like-minded individuals dedicated to the right to a death with dignity Continue Reading »

Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Events/Conferences, Final Exit, Final Exit Network, physician-assisted suicide, right to die, RTD News, RTD Organizations, Self-Deliverance | No Comments »

New Victoria doctor-assisted law has lots of hoops to jump through

Nov 30th, 2017 by

This first right-to-die law just passed in Australia is a welcome break-through, but will it work in a smooth manner?

I’ve not yet had chance to read the Victoria law, but according to BBC World News, three doctors have to sign off on the proposed assisted dying, and then it goes before a board for final approval.

This sounds unworkable; anyway, why should such a personal, important quality of life decision go before a board of strangers? These procedures could take up the time the poor patient has left!
We shall see.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Euthanasia, Final Exit | No Comments »

Takes time & work to get legislation on assisted dying

Nov 28th, 2017 by

The Swiss group DIGNITAS has survived many controversial battles, now takes it fight for choices in dying further abroad.

EDITORIAL
NOVEMBER 2017 newsletter of DIGNITAS, Switzerland:

Freedom of choice in one’s life and at life’s end is a human right. In 1998, the non-profit association DIGNITAS – To live with dignity – To die with dignity was born from this conviction.

The European Court of Human Rights backs this principle. Nevertheless, professionally accompanied suicide is still prohibited in many countries. In this way, legislation deprives people of their right to self-determination, which they are entitled to as free and mature citizens.

Our goal is to change this. It takes time and perseverance. As long as in many countries accompanied suicide is still prohibited, members of DIGNITAS have the possibility, under certain prerequisites, to end their lives in dignity and self-determination in Switzerland.

Freedom must not only be fought for, but it must be defended again and again. — www.dignitas.ch

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Opinion Pieces, physician-assisted suicide, Politics/Law, right to die, RTD News | No Comments »

“Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance & Assisted Suicide for the Dying”

Nov 11th, 2017 by

It continues to help

FINAL EXIT sales stats on Amazon Books 11.11.17

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

#1 in Books > Law > Estate Planning > Living Wills
#1 in Books > Law > Health & Medical Law > Right to Die
#15 in Books > Self-Help > Death & Grief > Suicide
+++++++++++++

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Books, Derek Humphry, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Hemlock, Living Will | No Comments »

First Australia state makes progress on doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill

Oct 21st, 2017 by

Australia has been trying to pass legislation on doctor-assisted dying for about 50 years.
Now a law has got early approval which looks like holding up.
Victoria’s landmark Voluntary Assisted Dying bill passed the lower house with 47 votes to 37 on Friday.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity Act, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Final Exit, physician-assisted suicide | No Comments »

Book review of ‘Good Life, Good Death’

Oct 11th, 2017 by

From The Lancet Book Reviews:

“Good Life, Good Death”
Review by Talha Khan Burki
Published: May 2017

Derek Humphry used a cocktail of codeine and secobarbital to end his wife’s life. The cancer had spread from her breast into her bones and organs. Jean Humphry had reached a stage at which the merest movement threatened to snap a wrist or a couple of ribs. She did not want to live like that. Her family knew what she wanted her husband to do. When the moment came, Jean asked Derek “is this the day?” The drugs were ready, obtained in advance from a sympathetic doctor. If the authorities were to uncover the identity of the anonymous physician, they could charge both him and Derek under section 2 of the Assisted Suicide Act (1961).

In the early afternoon of March 29, 1979, Derek Humphry gave his bed-ridden wife a large mug of coffee, full of sugar and enough drugs to stop her breathing. After Jean passed out, she vomited. Derek worried that she may have expelled the medication; he readied himself to stifle her with a pillow (later, he would advise others in similar circumstances to use antiemetics). But everything went according to plan, and Jean died. “The swift finality of it stunned me—one moment she was here, next she was gone.”, writes Humphry in his deft memoir Good Life, Good Death. “All this was later to have unforeseen repercussions”.

Humphry’s career spanned the golden era of British journalism. He was born in 1930 in Somerset, son of a ne’er do-well father and a flighty mother. His account of his peripatetic childhood is enthralling. Humphry writes in crisp and spare prose, doubtless honed during his years working on august national newspapers. After Jean’s death, he moved from journalist to campaigner, decamping to the USA, where he founded the Hemlock Society, the country’s first pressure group for assisted suicide and euthanasia for the terminally ill.

“Good Life, Good Death” is a charming and moving book, effortlessly evoking the tough world of post-war journalism and the tireless advocacy efforts that characterised the second half of Humphry’s career. The author concludes by pondering his own death. “If the pain management and quality of life are acceptable to me, then I shall stick it out to the natural close”, he writes. “If not, I shall advise those close to me that I shall shortly be bringing my life to a planned end. As I have so often said, the aim is a good life and a good death”.
SOURCE:
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(17)30271-1
Published by Carrel Books, New York. Available on Amazon worldwide, hardback, ebook or Kindle.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Books, Derek Humphry, Final Exit, Hemlock, Politics/Law, right to die, RTD News | No Comments »

SCOTUS Declines To Hear Minnesota Assisted Suicide Case

Oct 3rd, 2017 by

Associated Press reported 2 October 2017:

SCOTUS Declines To Hear Minnesota Assisted Suicide Case

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a national group convicted of assisting in the 2007 suicide of a Minnesota woman.

The high court’s decision means the 2015 conviction will stand against Final Exit Network Inc., which was found guilty of assisting in the suicide of 57-year-old Doreen Dunn, of Apple Valley. She took her own life with advice from the group after a decade of chronic pain. The group was fined $30,000 and ordered to pay funeral expenses.

Florida-based Final Exit Network argued that Minnesota’s law making it a crime to help other people kill themselves violates the freedom of speech.

But Minnesota’s appellate courts disagreed, saying the state’s assisted-suicide law is constitutional and that “assisting” suicide can include speech instructing another person on methods.
Moderator Add-on
You can’t speak on this in MN but for quarter of a century you’ve been able to get ‘Final Exit’ to read in bookstores, libraries and on the web.
Discombobulating to the average person !!

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Posted in Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Dutch euthanasia, Final Exit, Final Exit Network, Politics/Law, right to die, RTD News, RTD Organizations, Suicide (rational) | No Comments »

Most Florida people would like law on physician-assisted suicide

Sep 30th, 2017 by

USATODAY Sept. 29, 2017

Floridians favor physician-assisted suicide

The state outlaws it, but a clear majority of Floridians favor giving terminally ill patients the option of ending their own lives with the help of a doctor, a new survey suggests.

Nearly six of 10 respondents – 59 percent – to the University of South Florida-Nielsen Sunshine State Survey said they view allowing physician-assisted suicide as “going in the right direction.” That’s three times more than the 18 percent who opted for “wrong direction.” Another 24 percent weren’t sure or had no opinion.

Support is highest among older Floridians 65-79 (65 percent), whites (64 percent), Hispanics (63 percent), and the unemployed (62 percent). Support levels are lowest among blacks (32 percent), many of whom believe it is morally wrong based on their religion, the survey found.

“Other (blacks) are distrustful of the health-care system,” Susan MacManus, a political science professor at USF, wrote in the survey. “Because they see it as racist, they are reticent to allow physicians to end their own or a loved one’s life.”

Regionally, residents of the Orlando region (68 percent) express the strongest support for the option. The greatest opposition is from North Florida — home to the state’s highest share of religious conservatives and a younger population overall.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity Act, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Dutch euthanasia, Final Exit, physician-assisted suicide, Politics/Law, right to die, RTD News | 1 Comment »

A New York musical celebrating choice in dying under Oregon law

Sep 24th, 2017 by

AN INVITATION
A Broadway Bound Musical – Death with Dignity Inspired

Duke Theater
229 42nd St, New York NY 10036

Goodbye New York’s first performance is on 10/5 at 7pm and tickets are now available at: https://tickets.dukeon42.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=8960

Can also follow on:

Facebook page – Goodbye New York: A New Musical
https://www.facebook.com/GoodbyeNYMusical/

Instagram – @goodbyenewyorkmusical

10/5 will be a showcase festival, meaning that it will have a 25 minute performance to show what the musical is about in front of a producer/emmy winner panel and audience.

The producers write to me:

Goodbye New York is inspired by choices made by the terminally ill while contemplating to end life on their own terms in Oregon.
We have just finished writing the show and have been accepted into the New York New Works Festival in NYC this fall! We know that our showcase date will be on 10/5.

“We were wondering if you or any of your colleagues or friends were in the area on that date if you’d be available to attend? Having support from advocates like yourselves would help our cause immensely. “
…….

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Brittany Maynard, Death With Dignity Act, Final Exit, Oregon law, physician-assisted suicide, Politics/Law, right to die, RTD News, Switzerland | No Comments »

Special right-to-die conference in Las Vegas

Sep 20th, 2017 by

“Dying in the Americas 2018” conference

Visit www.finalexitnetwork.org for more information.

Explore the future of dying in the Americas: Where we are today and help define a path to the future.
March 21-25, 2018 Las Vegas/Henderson, NV
Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa located on Lake Las Vegas

Join us to re-imagine the dying experience in America. Keynote Speakers:

– *Dr. Zubin Damania* – health care pioneer in new ways of considering healthcare delivery and conversations. ZdoggMD* (*
http://zdoggmd.com/aint-the-way-to-die/)
– *Shanaaz Gokool *- CEO, Dying with Dignity Canada, a compelling
speaker and leading activist in changing Canadian laws
– *Dr. Stefanie Green, Victoria, Canada *- a pioneer physician in Canada who has changed her practice from OB-GYN to MAiD, Medical Aid in Dying.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity Act, Dignitas, Final Exit, Final Exit Network, physician-assisted suicide, Politics/Law, right to die, RTD News, RTD Organizations | 1 Comment »

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