Links to Internet Resources on
Right-to-Die &
Physician-Assisted Suicide

Copyright 2005, 2012 by Ronald B. Standler


Table of Contents
Introduction

Government websites in USA

Professors' websites in USA

Non-Profit Organizations in USA

Resources on Cases (e.g., Schiavo)

Euthanasia Advocacy Groups in USA

See my separate webpage on end-of-life planning (e.g., health-care proxy) for residents of Massachusetts, with some links to advance directives nationwide in the USA.


Introduction

This webpage collects links to other websites on topics of end-of-life law in the USA.   This webpage is a resource for my essays:
  1. Right to Refuse Medical Treatment. This legal right underlies the right-to-die, discussed in the next essay.

  2. Right-To-Die, annotated judicial opinions that describe the legal right to discontinue a feeding tube or artificial ventilation.

  3. Physician-Assisted Suicide, the emerging legal right in the USA for a physician to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs that a terminally ill patient uses to commit suicide.
This webpage is not a bibliography for my essays, because my sources are cited in each essay.

Disclaimer

This webpage is intended only to present general information about an interesting topic in law and is not legal advice for your specific problem. See my disclaimer.   The following links are provided only as a convenience to readers of these pages. I receive neither income nor other consideration as a result of referrals or providing links to any entity. I make neither representations nor warranties about the contents of the websites at the following links.


Government websites

  1. New York State, Department of Health, When Death Is Sought (May 1994). Report of Governor's Task Force on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context.   Frequently cited by opponents of euthanasia.

  2. Oregon State Department of Human Services, Death With Dignity Act, reports experience with Oregon statute that, beginning in Oct 1997, allows physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs for a terminally ill adult patient.   old URL

  3. Washington State Department of Health Death with Dignity. Reports experience with Washington statute that, beginning in March 2009, allows physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs for a terminally ill adult patient.

  4. U.S. Government, National Institutes of Health, Bioethics links for End-of-Life issues and Palliative Care.




Professors' websites

Prof. Valerie J. Vollmar, College of Law, Willamette University, Physician-Assisted Death website (begun March 1997, updated about two or three times/year).

Prof. James M. Hoefler, Political Science Dept., Dickinson Univ., Tube Feeding Options at the End-of-Life (no date).

Dr. Robert Young, Philosophy Dept., Latrobe Univ. in Australia, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Voluntary Euthanasia (first published 1996, revised 2010).

Prof. Lawrence M. Hinman, Philosophy Dept., Univ. of San Diego, Euthanasia and End-of-Life Decisions, collection of links and bibliography.

State University of New York at Buffalo Bioethics.

New York University collection of syllabi from various colleges on Death and Dying.

Georgetown University, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Bioethics Research Library, Death and Dying.

Michigan State University, College of Human Medicine, HM546 ethics class. Click on "module syllabus" for the online readings for each week of the class. Created in Fall 2005.


Non-Profit Organizations



Case Resources

Schiavo case resources

Prof. Kathy Cerminara and Prof. Kenneth Goodman, University of Miami, Schiavo Case Resources has links to many unpublished documents.

Matt Conigliaro, The Terri Schiavo Information Page, with links to Florida court opinions (May 2005). The author is an appellate attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida.

FindLaw Legal Documents on the Schiavo case.

The 39-page (631 Kbyte PDF file) autopsy report for Theresa Schiavo, issued 13 June 2005, was posted at the Florida District Six Medical Examiner's website, but is no longer there.   Copies at: AbstractAppeal,   Univ. Miami,   Standler,   and The Smoking Gun.

other case resources

Compassion & Choices litigation resources.

Center for Clinical Ethics, State University of New York at Buffalo, webpage of links to physician-assisted suicide cases, including amicus curiae briefs (e.g., Washington v. Glucksberg, Vacco v. Quill, and court challenges to Oregon's statute).

In re A.C., 573 A.2d 1235 (D.C. 1990), a District of Columbia case involving a nonconsensual cesarean section operation on a terminally ill woman. Lynn M. Paltrow, one of the authors of this article, was listed on the brief to the appellate court as one of plaintiff's attorneys, so this article has insights not found in the reported judicial opinion. Reprinted from 8 Health Span (Jan 1991).



Euthanasia Advocacy Groups in USA

  1. The Hemlock Society was founded in 1980.
  2. Compassion in Dying was founded in Washington state in 1993. The following year, they filed litigation in Glucksberg v. Washington, and in New York: Quill v. Vacco.
  3. The Hemlock Society became End-of-Life Choices in 2003.
  4. In 2005, Compassion in Dying merged with End-of-Life Choices, to become Compassion & Choices.




this document is at   http://www.rbs2.com/euthlink.htm
created April 2005, revised 18 Aug 2012

Annotated list of all of my essays on health law.