Palliative care is a valuable role, making death easier to face…but for some it isn’t enough. “What I’m worried about is how I’m going to die,” said Dr. Donald Low, infectious disease specialist (the 2003 SARS expert) who advocated for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide in the days before his death last week (on September […]

Killing oneself is not illegal in Canada, but helping someone to commit suicide is against the law. So Susan Griffiths, a seventy-two-year-old Canadian, went to a clinic in Zurich, Switzerland for the right to die on her own terms, with the help of a doctor, before her body could be completely taken over by multiple […]

Thanks for passing on this story, Ken: Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owners, Ron, his wife Lisa, and their little boy Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying […]

Eighty-three-year-old Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan pathologist who supported physician-assisted suicide and “right-to-die” legislation and put assisted suicide on the world’s medical ethics stage, died today at Beaumont Hospital in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. He had been hospitalized for pneumonia and a kidney-related ailment. Through the 1990s he was charged with murder numerous […]

“I would be bothered if someone else makes a decision about whether I live or die. Maybe it should be included in the papers—that you can indicate if you wish to grant the ‘right to decide’ to your relatives or not. That way everyone can decide for himself. “I would not consider some doctor or […]

Everyone would agree that advances in medical science have helped extend the quantity and the quality of life. But by extending the lives of terminally ill patients, those advances have created a raging debate about euthanasia. Many argue that just because we CAN keep certain people alive does not necessarily mean that we SHOULD keep […]

Here is another response about my post regarding Spain’s upcoming decision to allow ‘death with dignity’: “I really hope the Spanish law does allow for this. I certainly wouldn’t want someone else making the decision for me.” ~Claire Melanie Hack Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend Read an excerpt now TV Shows and […]

Here is another response about my post regarding Spain’s upcoming decision to allow ‘death with dignity’. “Euthanasia should be fully legal, fully agreed. The one nuance: it should be the choice of the patient IMO, and a decision made in fully conscience. A patient not able to grasp the consequences of it should not have […]

Recently I posted about Spain’s upcoming decision to allow ‘death with dignity’. Over the next several posts I’d like to share some of the thoughts I received. Here is the first: “Tell me about it. This time last year my neighbors mother, aged 90, whose house I bought, was given a few days to live. […]

My husband brought to my attention a recent article in the B.C. newspaper: Spain to OK death ‘with dignity’. Of course I had to read the article and google for more information. It appears that in March 2011 Spain’s socialist government will approve a draft law that will allow people with incurable diseases in the […]