Many people struggle with unrelieved suffering from an incurable and progressive disorder, disease or illness. Others may reach a challenging stage of frailty after eight or nine decades of a fully lived life. Compassion & Choices supports people at these stages exercising their right to choose end-of-life care that reflects their values, priorities and beliefs.
A determined and well-informed individual can successfully choose the legally defensible end-of-life option of voluntarily stopping eating or drinking. VSED is when a mentally capable individual decides to control their own dying by making a conscious decision to refuse foods and fluids of any kind, including artificial nutrition and hydration, in order to advance the time of their death. While it is a natural way of dying, someone engaging in VSED needs and deserves caregiving and support for adequate symptom management, comfort care and emotional support. Compassion & Choices offers guidance for how best to secure this support before embarking on a VSED journey.
In Herself to the End, Fran Volkmann chronicles her wife, Joan’s, decision to stop eating and drinking following a dementia diagnosis and the steps she took to achieve a peaceful and dignified death with the support of her medical team, loving partner and friends.
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Compassion & Choices Gift Processing Center
PO Box 485
Etna, NH 03750
