A recent article in the Washington Post describes a group of residents of a retirement community in Philadelphia who hold clandestine meetings to discuss their desires for a rational end of life when they feel the time is right for them. Avoiding end stage dementia is cited as one of their particular concerns. The article [...]
This year's BBC Reith lecturer is former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption QC, who was one of the judges in the Tony Nicklinson case. In his first lecture "Law’s Expanding Empire", he looked at what we expect of the law and how it's aims have developed over the years. The programme can be heard here, [...]
Endgame is a documentary made over 18 months in 2017/8 by independent film maker Andi Reiss. It has been shown, with much praise, at many film festivals and at independent venues. He has now made it available to view on his Vimeo site. A link is embedded at the bottom of this page. The film, [...]
On 12th April 2019 the Governor of the US state of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, signed a bill into law which allows assisted suicide for those who have mental capacity, are terminally ill, and are within six months of dying. The law is based on a similar law in Oregon which has been in force [...]
A major push is being made to change the law in Scotland, led by Dignity in Dying (Scotland). MDMD strongly supports this. Although their campaign is limited to the "terminally ill", we note that Scotland now has a broader definition of terminal illness that no longer includes the six month life expectancy criterion. We hope [...]
BBC Radio 4 recently broadcast a 2 part programme about Debbie Purdy. The first part is a dramatisation of the story of how Debbie took her legal case to the House of Lords and as a result caused the director of public prosecutions, (DPP), to issue guidelines clarifying the facts to be considered when deciding [...]
MDMD is delighted with the launch of a formal coalition of like-minded organisations campaigning in the UK and crown dependencies for a change in the law on assisted dying. The Assisted Dying Coalition (ADC) is a forum that meets regularly and shares information and approaches on right-to-die campaigning. For many years MDMD has worked [...]
A BBC story discusses the assisted death of dementia sufferers, in particular the case of Annie Zwijnenberg in the Netherlands. Annie was never in any doubt that she wanted euthanasia, once she had her Alzheimer diagnosis. She delayed as long as she felt she could but she knew that if she waited for too long [...]
In October 2018, the National Secular Society and the Secular Medical Forum held a joint conference on Healthcare and Secularism. The final two talks concerned assisted dying and the right to die. Both talks were excellent. Videos of the talks are available on YouTube and are embedded here with some description and comments. 1. Dr. [...]
The Office of National Statistics has recently published data on cause of death in 2017. For the third year running Dementia and Alzheimer’s is the leading cause of death, and the trend is increasing. We have been monitoring this significant trend since it was first reported in 2016. See our previous reports on the 2016 [...]