A Community's Perspectives on Assisted Dying

Voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will decide in November whether to legalize the practice alternately referred to as Death With Dignity or Physician Assisted Suicide.

The practice, which gives physicians the legal authority to prescribe lethal doses to competent and otherwise qualified terminal patients, already is the law, by will of voters, in Oregon and Washington state.

The Community Ethics Committee hopes to encourage and inform dialogue among Massachusetts voters with its white paper on the subject, "Choosing Medically Induced Death."


You'll find this report in the box on this blog's home page, under Publications of the CEC. Or, click here.


The title reflects the CEC's attempt to give the practice a description that transcends both the charged term suicide and what some see as the euphemistic Death With Dignity.

We hope to post a summary of this rather lengthy white paper in the near future.