2013 TV Ads

2012 Ad, “The Time Has Come” featuring Jean Mallary and Congressman Richard Mallary:

Additional Resources and Information

View Ann Jackson’s presentation to Senate Health & Welfare committee on January 30, 2013. “Using Facts to Draw Conclusions.”

Read a document on the language of Death with Dignity, particularly why calling it “suicide” is inaccurate and biased.

Read Factual Responses Refuting Claims Made by Opponents of The Death with Dignity Law (or download as PDF)

An Oregon doctor on “Why Death With Dignity Is the Ultimate Responsibility of Physicians” – Neurology Today, August 2002

Read personal stories and opinion pieces from Oregon, Washington, Vermont and elsewhere.

Links to national organizations supporting death with dignity

• Death with Dignity National Center
• Compassion and Choices
• American Medical Women’s Association
• American Public Health Association
• American Medical Student Association
• American College of Legal Medicine (Read the Baxter vs. State of Montana brief on their website)
• Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

Films

• The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
• How to Die in Oregon

2012 annual report on the Oregon Death with Dignity law

• Oregon Department of Health

Report from Washington State on Death with Dignity Act

• Washington State Department of Health

Independent research on the Oregon experience

• New England Journal of Medicine – Experiences of Oregon Nurses and Social Workers with Hospice Patients Who Requested Assistance with Suicide
• JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) – Responding to Requests for Physician-Assisted Suicide
• JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) – Oregon Physicians’ Attitudes About and Experiences With End-of-Life Care Since Passage of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act
• Journal of Pain and Symptom Management – Mental Health Outcomes of Family Members of Oregonians Who Request Physician Aid in Dying (2009)

Books:

• Death with Dignity: The Case for Legalizing Physician-Assisted Dying and Euthanasia, by Robert Orfali – Orfali provides an in-depth exploration of the shortcomings of our end-of-life system. The reader will learn about terminal torture in hospital ICUs and about the alternatives: hospice and palliative care. With laser-sharp focus, Orfali scrutinizes the good, the bad, and the ugly. He provides an insightful critique of the practice of palliative sedation. The book makes a strong case that assisted dying complements hospice. Oregon, by providing both, now has the best palliative-care system in America. This book can serve as a gentle and informed guide to “a good death” in the age of hospice and high-tech medical intervention.
• To Die Well: Comfort, Calm and Choice in the Last Days of Life, by Sidney Wanzer, M.D. and Joseph Glenmullen, M.D. – indicates the various legal options used by persons seeking reduction of suffering at the end of life.