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Dignity in Dying campaigns for assisted dying, not assisted suicide or euthanasia: what is the difference?
Dignity in Dying advocates assisted dying – this gives terminally ill, mentally competent adults the choice to control the time and manner of their own death via life-ending medication, within safeguards. We do not advocate assisted suicide for non-terminally ill people. Furthermore, we do not advocate euthanasia which allows doctors to directly end patients’ lives.
This isn’t just a theoretical difference, each of these practices exists today: assisted suicide in Switzerland; voluntary euthanasia in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; and assisted dying in the US states of Oregon and Washington. Dignity in Dying believes that assisted dying provides patients with a choice to end unnecessary suffering at the end of life, whilst providing an important built-in safeguard to ensure that the final decision lies solely with the person asking for help to die, because it is the...
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