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People do want to talk about their end-of-life options. Over 300 of them showed up to a discussion held in Guelph, Ontario, on Tuesday. This meeting was organized and hosted by the Liberal MP for Guelph, Frank Valeriote.

In Calgary recently, get-togethers over tea and cakes at Death Cafes have been swamped with people.

Would you be willing to host a function like this? Contact our office if you can help get the word out. Remember, "Talking about death won't kill you".

Now you can pour that champagne!

This significant win makes Vermont the first legislature in the USA to approve death with dignity and the first state in the East (and the fourth in the USA) to permit aid in dying.

Between 75% and 80% of Canadians want the same thing as the people in Vermont .... the choice of a peaceful death. No coercion, just a choice.

When will our MPs allow us to make our own choice?

He is unable to speak and virtually unable to move. He describes his life as undignified, distressing and Intolerable.

But he is being kept alive against his will.

Why? Maybe it's "good for society". Maybe it's "god's will".

British Courts will decide whether he and others like him have the right to choose a dignified death or not.

What do those with disabilities think about medically assisted dying? Here is an excellent article written by two people active in the movement to protect the rights of the disabled.

Montanans Against Assisted Suicide keep putting their finger in the dyke. Two weeks ago they lost their fight to introduce a law that would send doctors to jail. Now they are challenging a policy by the state`s Board of Medical Examiners.

Pretty soon that dyke is going to collapse and these dinosaurs will be swept away by a wave of new legislation that will give us all a choice in how we die.

AIDS activist is now fighting on behalf of DWD for medically assisted dying.

Dr. Greg Robinson, who now serves on the Board of DWD, gave this impassioned speech to those attending the Annual General Meeting in Toronto on Sunday.

"In the health-care debate, we’ve heard a lot about useless care, wasteful care, futile care. What we have been struggling with is unwanted care. That’s far more concerning. That’s not avoidable care. That’s  wrongful care. I think that’s the most urgent issue facing America today, is people getting medical interventions that, if they were more informed, they would not want. It happens all the time.”

Here's an excellent article from The Atlantic magazine by Jonathan Rauch. The situations described certainly translate from the USA to Canada.

In Canada, our federal government is fighting to retain our archaic laws  that prohibit choice and compassion at the end of life by appealing the decision in the Carter case.

But in Australia a previous federal Minister of Health, Peter Baume, and a legal academic, Ben White, have issued a report calling for choice in dying in that country and say that the present law must be reformed. Why are our parliamentarians dragging their feet?

Here is an excellent essay by Arthur Schafer who is the director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. He is  strongly in favour of the legalization of physician assisted dying in Canada.

A year ago today, DWD client and beloved volunteer, Nagui Morcos ended his life.

Nagui did not go quietly into the night.  Instead he bravely and courageously shared his story publicly, touching the hearts of thousands of Canadians with his eloquent plea for choice at end of life.