Death With Dignity Resources for Patients

• The decision to die at the time of one’s own choosing is one of a handful of medical decisions a patient may make and is a goal separate unto itself. Learn about choosing treatment based on your own goals.
• Stopping treatment for your disease or condition, knowing that it will lead to your death, is a difficult decision to make. Understand the issues and questions about your right to refuse treatment and how to make the decision to refuse medical treatment.
• Know that palliative care and hospice may be good options. Also, be sure you understand the difference between hospice and palliative care.

Organizations built around these issues focus on different aspects of the right to die and death with dignity including civil rights, ethics, the law, education, how-to information, and patient protection.

PBS's Frontline has an interesting timeline that begins in 1980 with establishment by Derek Humphry of the Hemlock Society through 2012.

Additional states have endorsed death with dignity and the right to die since then.

• Video: The Suicide Plan from PBS first aired in November 2012. It follows the stories and issues raised by a number of people who chose to die in their own time frame, told from their own, and their loved one’s points of view. ​(Editor's Note: This video is excellent and definitely worth your time.)
• Book: Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying (by Derek Humphry) is a step-by-step how-to book, which Humphrey calls "death by self-deliverance." Humphrey was the founder of the original Hemlock Society (now Compassion and Choices) and was the originator of the Oregon Right to Die legislation. He describes self-deliverance as "the right of a terminally ill person with unbearable suffering to know how to choose to die." The book also includes information and advice about laws, ethics, life insurance, and more.
• Book: How to Die: Safeguards for Life-Ending Decisions (by James Leonard Park) is a free book available online that covers the gamut of information one would need to make a choice.
• Website:​​ Right-to-Die Portal. James Leonard Park (author of the book listed above) has developed this vast resource of information from organizations, to how-tos, to legislation.

The right to die, legal or conceptual, is fraught with disagreement, defiant opinions, and issues. Linked here are a variety of articles with information that surrounds the issues.

• Pros - Learn more about the arguments in favor of death with dignity and the right to die
• Cons - Learn more about the arguments against death with dignity and the right to die
• ProCon.org - on Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide
• From The Week: Pros and Cons on the Right to Die

The real legal issue in right to die legislation regards physician-assisted suicide, also called aid-in-dying, more so than whether a patient has a 'right' to choose the time of his or her own time of death.

There are a number of terms used in discussions of self-determination of death. Most have some aspect that distinguishes them from others. When communicating with experts in the field, the nuances become important.

Here are some of the terms you may encounter:

• euthanasia or voluntary euthanasia - is the practice of intentionally ending a life due to a judgment that the life no longer offers any quality
• physician-assisted suicide, assisted death, or aid-in-dying refer to providers who assist patients with euthanasia because patients themselves have requested that help
• comfort care and palliative care - are the form of treatment provided to patients who suffer, usually at the end of life (although not always) and may, or may not, be provided during aid in dying

Further:

• The organization, Death with Dignity, offers an extensive glossary.