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Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble’s mission is to revive the practice of memento mori, intentionally thinking about your own death as a means of appreciating the present.Credit.Tony Luong for The New York Times
To the Editor:
We have a 100 percent mortality rate. But too many people never engage in a process of thinking about and planning for their deaths so that they can die, to the extent possible, on their own terms in accord with their values and beliefs, religious and otherwise.
Those 18 and over should have discussions with loved ones and appoint a health care agent (or durable power of attorney for health care), a trusted person who will be a strong advocate to make health care decisions consistent with the wishes of the patient, if the patient no longer can make such decisions. (About 70 percent of us lose the ability near the end of life.)
Options for terminally ill, dog breeders, IRS refunds
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Rejecting arguments in opposition to medical aid in dying | David Leven
David C. Leven
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This opinion column was submitted by David C. Leven, JD, who has been working End of Life Choices New York for almost two decades.
T. Brian Callister s column is replete with factual errors and invalid arguments against what is now more properly termed medical aid in dying. People die by suicides who could continue to live, usually when mentally ill, often impulsively and violently. Their deaths are tragic.
To the contrary, a terminal disease is killing those who take prescribed medications near the end of their lives to end their suffering, and they can only do so after a process involving at least two doctors, which generally takes weeks from the time the first request is made. These deaths are empowering.
Palliative care or aid-in-dying? Why not both?
Updated December 22, 2020, 2:30 a.m.
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My position is rooted in both rational and emotional considerations, having had two wives who died, one from a brain aneurysm and the other from cancer. In the first instance, we had discussed the issue of one of us being in a potentially terminal situation and what the other should do; in the second, we shared nine years of treatments and discussion of how long this should go on, even with palliative care playing a role.
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It seems to me that ultimately, the individual should have the right to determine the course of her or his own life, including the end point. Should it be a question of either palliative care and hospice or aid-in-dying? Why not both options?
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