VSED

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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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 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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VSED Stories: Notes From a Caregiver

May 15, 2023 / Personal story, VSED

In “The Struggle: Notes From a Caregiver,” published in January on NextAvenue.org, David McNally discusses the emotional roller coaster that accompanies caregiving for his wife Cheryl, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Cheryl watched her brother succumb to Alzheimer’s, and has decided to use VSED to hasten her death sometime this year, with David’s support. Right

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Book Corner: Recent Reviews of “The VSED Handbook”

April 14, 2023 / Book corner, In the news, VSED

The VSED Handbook, written by VRNW member Kate Christie and with a foreword from VRNW co-founder Nancy Simmers, has lately gotten some attention in varying parts of the country. In February, Patient Choices Vermont–a non-profit organization dedicated to end-of-life choice–published a review on their website. Susan Gillotti, PCV Board Member, had this to say about

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VRNW Member Responds to Seattle Times Article about WA’s Death with Dignity/MAID Law

February 9, 2023 / Death with Dignity, Medical aid-in-dying, Personal story, VSED

Recently, retired newspaper photographer Peter Haley penned an editorial in the Seattle Times: “State’s ‘Death with Dignity’ law failed my wife.” In his piece, Haley wrote that Toni, his “beloved wife of 27 years,” was forced to die alone because Washington state’s medical aid-in-dying (MAID) law doesn’t cover ALS. Toni chose to die on her

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