“Dr. Lewis M. Cohen’s insightful and fascinating book candidly and high-mindedly tackles the timely issues surrounding planned death, a topic more and more likely to touch us all.”
— Ken Dychtwald, bestselling author of BodyMind and Age Wave
“Those personally struggling with these questions and those on all sides of this societal debate would do well to learn from this thoughtful, provocative exploration.”
—Timothy E. Quill, MD, MACP, FAAHPM
There are fates worse than death. Here are candid, stirring accounts of people who acted when faced with those circumstances.
Each year, more than one million people and their loved-ones arrive at a decision to cease attempts at curative medical treatments and shift to hospice care, while one in five Americans now live in geographical regions that have established lawful protocols allowing medical aid in dying. In this powerful new work, Lew Cohen, a psychiatrist and palliative medicine researcher, reveals a self-determination movement that empowers people to shape the timing and circumstances of their deaths, decriminalizes laws threatening those who help them, and passes assisted dying legislature.
A Dignified Ending offers candid, inspirational, and graphic stories of individuals who sought to choreograph how they would die. Nothing about these choices is simple, and Cohen insightfully examines the intricacies of timing, the effect of dementia and other dire but not terminal conditions, the legal risks, and the mixed reaction of the disability community. He illuminates the evolution of right-to-die organizations in the United States, and the impact of activists like Jack Kevorkian, Derek Humphrey, Faye Girsh, Cody Curtis, and Brittany Maynard.
In August, New Jersey will enact its Medical Aid in Dying bill. Maine’s Dignity in Dying bill was passed in June. Physician-assisted death is legal in California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. In Montana, a ruling shields doctors from prosecution if they have the patient’s request in writing, but there is no regulatory framework for doctor-assisted dying. “Death with Dignity” legislation has been proposed in 24 more states. A 2018 Gallup poll found that 72 percent of people think a doctor should be able to help a terminally ill patient end their life.
Concluding one’s life with a planned death is an emotionally polarizing subject. Still, the public increasingly wants to control how they die. This requires that people formulate their end-of-life preferences and not wait until the last moment to communicate these with physicians and families. A Dignified Ending conveys truthful and nuanced accounts of men and women who chose to die, and stories of the activists—proponents and opponents— focused on this growing right-to-die movement.
Lew Cohen is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts-Baystate School of Medicine, and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Tufts University School of Medicine. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Medicine and Health, two Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency awards, and a Bogliasco Fellowship for the Arts and Humanity, as well as the Eleanor and Thomas Hackett Award from the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. He is author or co-editor of several books, including No Good Deed.