Compassion & Choices

Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization in the United States working to improve patient rights and individual choice at the end of life, including access to medical aid in dying. Its primary function is advocating for and ensuring access to end-of-life options, including medical aid in dying.

With over 65,000 supporters and campaigns in nine states, it is the largest organization of its kind in the United States.

Terminally ill patient services

Compassion & Choices provides end-of-life consultation for dying patients and their families at no cost. Professional consultants and trained volunteers work by phone or in person to offer assistance in completing advance directives, make referrals to local services including hospice and illness-specific support groups, advice on adequate pain and symptom management, and information on safe, effective and legal methods for aid in dying.

The organization's work is highlighted in the documentary film How to Die in Oregon which won the 2011 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Legal work

Compassion & Choices litigates patient cases related to ensuring adequate end-of-life care and choice, represented 16 terminally ill patient-plaintiffs at the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Oregon, defeating the Bush administration's challenge to Oregon's Death with Dignity Act in January 2006.

Through litigation, Compassion & Choices protects terminally ill patients' rights to receive pain and symptom management, to voluntarily stop life-sustaining treatments, to request and receive palliative sedation, and to choose aid in dying under state and federal constitutional protections.

Other important legal cases where Compassion & Choices was a leading advocate have included Vacco v. Quill, Washington v. Glucksberg, Sampson v. Alaska, and more recently, Morris v. New Mexico and Pennsylvania v. Mancini.

History and organization

Compassion & Choices is the successor to the Hemlock Society, and Compassion In Dying Federation; the organizations merged in 2007. The organization maintains staff in New York, the District of Columbia, California, Washington State, Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, Vermont and New Jersey.

See also

• Barbara Coombs Lee
• Baxter v. Montana
• Death with Dignity National Center
• Oregon Death with Dignity Act
• Family Health Care Decisions Act
• Gonzales v. Oregon
• Brittany Maynard
• Vacco v. Quill
• Washington v. Glucksberg
• Washington Death with Dignity Act

Bibliography

• Farewell to Hemlock: Killed by its name, an essay by Derek Humphry 21 February 2005

External links

• Compassion & Choices
• Compassion & Choices - Oregon
• Compassion & Choices - Montana
• Compassion & Choices - Vermont
• Compassion & Choices - California

• the organization has worked for recognition of a difference between the terms "assisted suicide" and "legal physician aid in dying" in the criminal code. For example, Oregon law draws a distinction between "suicide" and "aid in dying" for criminal purposes. ORS 127.880 §3.14 [1][2][3]