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Lawful Exit: The Limits of Freedom for Help in Dying

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It met all my expectations ! Well written !! Very informative.WORTH EVERY PENNEY.Recommended reading.

The book was in great condition and I recieved it fast. I will look for more products from this seller. Thanks!

Derek Humphry
Lawful Exit:
The Limits of Freedom for Help in Dying

(Junction City, OR: Norris Lane Press, 1993) 166 pages
(Library of Congress call number: R726.H847 1993)

Derek Humphry--champion of the right-to-die--
explores several legal details in the process of winning the right-to-die.
Many provisions have been proposed for various right-to-die laws.
Some are more workable than others.
Some deal with very unlikely possibilities.
Humphry presents his own Model Death-with-Dignity Act
as an appendix to this book.

History has moved on in the years since this book was published.
But some of the same issues are still discussed.
And reading this book could provide a background
for the debate about the right-to-die
that will continue in the 21st century.

Here are some of the legal issues discussed:

1. How shall we define and use our technical terms?
2. How can we make tacit 'decisions' more open and honest?
3. Should doctors be involved in the process of ending life?
4. When doctors are involved, should they be especially qualified
in the disease or other condition of the patient?
5. How can be make sure that a second professional opinion
is really independent?
6. Must patients choosing death be competent?
7. Must patients choosing death be terminal?
8. How should we decide for infants and children?
9. Must patients choosing death have a physical illness
or could mental suffering ever by a sufficient reason?
10. Should a psychological evaluation of the patient be required?
11. Should a medical trial of pain-control be required?
12. Should we have special protections for disabled people?
13. What documentation of voluntary deaths
or merciful deaths should be required?
14. Should voluntary deaths and merciful deaths
be certified by judges?
15. Residency requirements:
Should only local people be granted the right-to-die?
16. How can we avoid the right-to-die becoming the duty-to-die?
17. Should we prohibit or regulate 'suicide clinics'?
18. How should we protect health-care personnel
from criminal, civil, & administrative sanctions if they follow the guidelines?
19. How should we handle people with Alzheimer's disease?
20. Should there be special safeguards for residents of nursing homes?
21. What sense does it make to report the fulfilling of safeguards
after the death has already occurred?
22. Should the laws be changed by a direct vote of the people?
23. Are legislators usually too timid to vote for the right-to-die?
24. What about patients who wish to choose death
who lack the physical capacity to kill themselves?
25. How long should the patient have to wait
between a request for death and when relief is finally granted?
26. How do we prevent coerced death?
27. What kind of documentation or witnesses
for a request for death should be required?
28. Must all family members be notified of a request for death?

One chapter in Lawful Exit
reviews the efforts in three states to change the law:
Washington, California, & Oregon.
Much of the opposition focused around lack of safeguards.

This book offers a good opportunity to review and re-consider
many of the details of any proposed laws concerning the right-to-die.

The above book-review also appears on the Internet,
where it has more than 10 links to further information.
Search this exact expression: "More Books on the Right-to-Die".

James Leonard Park, advocate of the right-to-die with careful safeguards.