A 2016 American-British film shot in beautiful British settings. A young handsome, wealthy man confined to a wheel chair, wants to end his life at Dignitas in Switzerland. Love develops with his caregiver; she is strenuously opposed to his hastening…
By Marissa Cabrera, Maureen Cavanaugh, KPBS June 6, 2017. Audio: 6 min 35 seconds Hemlock Society of San Diego founder Faye Girsh discusses why the California End of Life Option Act does not go far enough.
KPBS Midday Edition By Marissa Cabrera, Maureen Cavanaugh June 6, 2017 Length: 6.41 mins. Faye Girsh discusses why California's End of Life Option Act does not go far enough. https://d2ry37igjfn1mv.cloudfront.net/audio/2017/06/06/170606-Faye_Girsh-Midday.mp3
A 1997 film directed by Sidney Lumet. It is a satire about American medicine and keeping patients alive, including the role of insurance. Our movies don't usually make you laugh but this one should. R rated ! The film is…
The story of a young professor who develops early onset Alzheimer's. What would you do? How would your family react? What if you could no longer keep your job? Would you try to take your life? How? How can you…
Fresh Air, NPR - Jan. 30, 2017 Terry Gross talks with author of "Modern Death" and fellow in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center, Dr. Haider Warraic, about how medicine has changed the end of life. He talks about the…
Independent, patriotic, realistic, optimistic, terminally ill Sam Niver plans and executes his own death — with the help of his two adult children.
By Tracy Seipel - Bay Area News Group September 2016 "It’s a scene being played out throughout California, as scores of terminally ill patients are learning to their dismay — and outrage — that the state’s new aid-in-dying law comes…
A sensitive award-winning Japanese film about a young man who stumbled across a job working as a Japanese ritual mortician. Shunned by his wife and friends for working with death, they changed their minds when they realize the beauty and…
By Linda Van Zandt - Los Angeles Times Aug 14, 2016 "We had been forced to assist in the most bizarre fashion, jumping through seemingly random legal hoops and meeting arbitrary deadlines while my aunt suffered, and finally emptying capsules,…
First woman to take advantage of California's End of Life Option Act ? Opinion Piece by Kelly Davis - Voice of San Diego, August 9, 2016 Woman describes the experience of her sister, who had ALS, taking advantage of the…
1971 dark comedy film classic: Harold, obsessed with death, meets the 79-year-old carefree Maude.
An Italian film about a young woman who helps people die. What happens when her guidelines are violated? How does this occupation affect her life? Are there other “Honeys” around? Should there be?
NPR Host Diane Rehm discusses her book, On My Own and about how the death of her husband inspired her to take up a controversial cause: the right to die in America. She is fierce advocate for the right to…
PBS News Hour. March 3, 2016 Diane Rehm's husband, who had Parkinson's, was not eligible medical aid dying. He chose to voluntarily stop eating and drinking in order to end his life. "I rage at a system that wouldn't allow…
How terminally ill persons, their family, and friends consider whether and when to take a lethal medication overdose as allowed in Oregon since 1997 and soon to be available in California through the End of Life Option Act. Winner of…
KevinMd.com Feb. 8, 2016 Many doctors are reluctant to talk about end of life issues. Many families want to avoid the issue altogether and are shocked when the end "suddenly" appears. Read more about doctors' reluctance to talk about end…
Based on the best-selling book by Dr. Atul Gawande, this documentary shows him meeting with colleagues and patients to discuss treatment choices at the end of life. Up-close and even better than the book!
By Haider Javed Warraich, New York Times Nov. 24, 2015 Many late-stage dementia patients develop difficulties in swallowing and frequently aspirate food or other stomach contents into their lungs, developing pneumonia. "Study after study, however, has shown that tube feeding…
Derek Humphry discusses the real world events behind his 1978 book Jean's Way. The book describes how he helped his cancer-riddled terminally-ill wife with her request to end her life, in England. The book has been published in six different…
An Economist film Emily is 24 years old, physically healthy and lives in Belgium, where euthanasia is legal, even for children.
Residents of a retirement community figure out how to help their fellow retirees who are suffering a bad death.
Opinion Piece By Kristen McConnell, New York Times, August 26, 2015 A nurse explains dying in an intensive care unit and corrects the impression that being in ICU is a "pause." "When I first realized that in intensive care we…
In this 1973 award-winning French-Italian film with Marcello Mastroianni, four gourmet friends rent a chateau. If you ever thought about how it would be to eat yourself to death, this will amuse and entertain you.
A boy helps his brother die and makes a vow to himself to end his own life at 37— until he falls in love with a woman with ALS who needs his help. Based on the novel, How Angel's Die,…
A beautiful woman, a handsome charming magician who is also a quadriplegic—in a beautiful house with wonderful music. But he wants to die —and the court denies him. A love story with a bittersweet ending.
by Deborah Brauser Medscape April 08, 2015 Rational suicide is discussed at the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) 2015 Annual Meeting. "Our main focus was on the fact that more and more individuals are expressing the wish to end…
No one disputes that it’s against the law to take another person’s life, but is it against the law to sit with someone and watch while they commit suicide? We meet an elderly woman who sneaks around the country as…
Xavier Barden (A Spanish film about a quadriplegic man who gets help to die from a Spanish RTD group)
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, The Atlantic, October 2014 "Americans may live longer than their parents, but they are likely to be more incapacitated. Does that sound very desirable? Not to me." Ezekiel J. Emanuel The compression of morbidity "...this theory postulates…
By Denise Ryan, Vancouver Sun Gillian Bennett's final words on her personal website make a passionate case for physician-assisted suicide. On Monday morning shortly before noon, Gillian Bennett dragged a foam mattress from her home on Bowen Island to one…
Documentary of the process of dying by Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking. It follows a retired surgeon with end-stage cancer on hospice who chose this method to end his life. Click here for information from the producers about the film…
By Logan Jenkins, Union Tribune, Aug 5, 2014. And Response by Faye Girsh, Ed.D., President of the Hemlock Society of San Diego The first column I ever wrote for money was about my grandmother slipping away in the back bedroom…
Award Winning Documentary - including 2011 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Award This exceptional film documents how physician aid in dying works in Oregon by following a woman with liver cancer over the months following her diagnosis. There…
by Joanne Faryon - KPBS Morning Edition This page of video and audio gives you a glimpse of what it is like in California subacute units. One video talks with the wife a man who lived in nursing home for…
A fictional account of a true story of a doctor going to Dignitas to die.
A thorough documentary on a subject rarely explored, assistance in dying. It covers the Final Exit Network and other right to die activities
by Lindsey Fitzharris in Medium Kate Granger, a 31-year-old physician who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of sarcoma and given less than 5 years to live decided to forgo chemotherapy. She made her decision based on quality of life.…
Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 2003. Canadian fictional account of a disagreeable man who dies peacefully. '"The Barbarian Invasions" is a movie about a man who dies about as pleasantly as it's possible to imagine; the…
by James Leonard Park Criteria for differentiating rational from irrational self-delivered death.
Old lady finds a reluctant hit man to help her older friends die. With Katherine Hepburn and Nick Nolte.
An older man caring for his wife who has repeated strokes. Read Faye Girsh's analysis of how the death in this film could have been better.
With Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart An older couple want to die together despite the daughter's protestations.
by Faye Girsh, President Hemlock Society of San Diego Love him or hate him, Jack Kevorkian was the face of the right-to-die movement for almost a decade. As he forced people to confront the struggle of suffering people seeking a…
Day 1 -- Monday, April 4, 2011 Jury selection begins this morning in the historical case of Arizona vs Dr. Larry Egbert (who was the Medical Director for the Final Exit Network) and Frank Langsner (who was an Exit Guide…
By Atul Gawande - The New Yorker - Aug. 20, 2010 "Our medical system is excellent at trying to stave off death with eight-thousand-dollar-a-month chemotherapy, three-thousand-dollar-a-day intensive care, five-thousand-dollar-an-hour surgery. But, ultimately, death comes, and no one is good at…
By Katy Butler, New York Times Magazine, June 18, 2010 This article was an influential article and prompted two excellent books by Katy Butler, Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death, 2013 and The Art…
A quiz that tests whether you might be a candidate for an assisted, hastened death.
by Faye Girsh, Ed.D. If you’re thinking about ending your life maybe you are depressed. Depression is a treatable condition which often leads to thoughts of dying. If you have at least five of these symptoms occurring nearly every day…
By Erwin J. D. Kompanje - Translated from Dutch into English from the NNVE newsletter 'RELEVANT'. (Vol.30. Number 1.2004):- It is often suggested that terminal patients die sooner after having received a higher dose of morphine or terminal sedation.…
Keynote speech to the 13th National Hemlock Conference 1/10/03 by John Shelby Spong, Eighth Episcopal Bishop of Newark I am both honored and delighted to speak to this national gathering of the Hemlock Society. It is a rare experience for…
by Bishop Shelby Spong I want them to remember me as a person who was vital to the end, as one who was in possession of all that makes me who I am, and as one who died well. My…
by Rodney Syme, MD What is a good death? Well, it is the antithesis of a bad death. In my view, a good death is not what Philip Aries described as a ' wild death', an unprepared death without peace,…
The Colombian Constitution provides a solid basis for decriminalizing merciful homicide, when a person who is undergoing intense suffering caused by an incurable illness, requests that it be put to an end, which implies causing death. I will briefly refer…
