Blog – Page 2 – VSED Resources Northwest

Quebec to approve advance requests for MAID as of Oct. 30, 2024

September 15, 2024 / Death with Dignity, In the news, Medical aid-in-dying, VSED

Canada’s medical assistance in dying law continues to evolve. A February 2015 Canadian Supreme Court ruling, Carter v. Canada, paved the way for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. The following year, Parliament passed federal legislation to allow Canadian residents to request MAiD under very specific circumstances and rules; generally, visitors to Canada are not eligible. Eligibility requirements […]

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Wendy Mitchell: The Case for Assisted Dying in the UK

May 15, 2024 / Book corner, Death with Dignity, Medical aid-in-dying

British co-authors Anna Wharton and Wendy Mitchell penned three bestselling books before Wendy, diagnosed in 2014 with early-onset Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, chose VSED to escape the final stages of her disease. Shortly after Wendy’s death in February 2024, Anna wrote a post for her blog, White Ink, about medical aid in dying in the

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VSED Stories: Wendy Mitchell’s Choice

April 15, 2024 / Book corner, Medical aid-in-dying, VSED

In February 2024, after a decade-long battle with early-onset dementia, British author Wendy Mitchell chose to stop eating and drinking. She details her decision-making process in a post titled, “My final hug in a mug….” on the blog Which Me am I Today? Wendy started her blog shortly after her diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s and vascular

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Using VSED as a bridge to MAiD for people with dementia?

February 12, 2024 / Hospice, Medical aid-in-dying, VSED

In a new article in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, “Medical aid in dying to avoid late-stage dementia,” authors Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD, and Lisa Brodoff, JD, discuss the plight of patients with dementia who wish to use medical aid-in-dying (MAiD) but are unable to qualify due to an inability to satisfy the

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New journal on medical-aid-in-dying (MAID)

December 12, 2023 / Education, Medical aid-in-dying, Research

The first issue of the Journal of Aid-in-Dying Medicine has now been published online. The Journal is online only; i.e., there is no print version. The Journal is also open access, meaning that anyone can read it. There is no paywall for any articles, thanks to advertisers. Some highlights from this first issue: A discussion

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New Study on patients who choose VSED

November 18, 2023 / End of life planning, Research, VSED

Researchers from Amsterdam UMC in the Netherlands recently published a new qualitative analysis on patients who chose to hasten their death via VSED. Below are details from the abstract, published in the November-December issue of the journal Annals of Family Medicine. Purpose: Voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED) is a controversial [SIC] method to

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Reblog: Kate Christie’s blog post on the good death society blog

October 29, 2023 / In the news, VSED

VSED: The Least Bad Option By Kate ChristiePublished on The Good Death Society Blog, a project of Final Exit Network (Kate Christie is a former technical and marketing writer who now primarily writes fiction. She is author of the book, The VSED Handbook: A Practical Guide to Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking. She also works

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VSED Stories: A good death for a Minnesota woman who championed VSED

August 12, 2023 / Personal story, VSED

Cheryl Hauser’s VSED story is similar to that of many others. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in her early 70s, she decided early on that she did not wish to live to the end stages of the disease. Her brother had suffered from the same form of dementia, so she knew from first-hand experience the depth of

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Comprehensive Clinical Guidelines for Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) Published in the United States

July 10, 2023 / Uncategorized

On June 21, 2023, the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management (JPSM) released the first published comprehensive clinical guidelines for Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) in the United States. VRNW co-founder and director Nancy Simmers was a member of the working group that drafted the guidelines. What follows is the text of a news

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In the News: VRNW Founder interviewed by CASCADIA DAILY NEWS

June 14, 2023 / In the news, Medical providers, Palliative care

In mid-May, VRNW co-founder Marie Eaton was interviewed for an article that appeared in the Cascadia Daily News, a locally owned newspaper based out of Bellingham. Staff reporter Ralph Schwartz interviewed Eaton for an article about palliative care in Whatcom County: “‘Devastated’: PeaceHealth makes cuts to palliative care; decision to reduce services for seriously ill a

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