December 8, 2011
Assisting Terminally Ill Patients to Die: What Does the Law Say?
Thursday, December 8, 2011
4:00 – 6:00 PM
Harvard Medical School
MEC Amphitheater, 2nd floor
260 Longwood Avenue, Boston
Barbara Coombs Lee, PA, FNP, JD, President, Compassion & Choices;
Charles H. Baron, LLB, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Boston College Law School;
George Annas, JD, Chair, Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights, Boston University School of Public Health; and
Marcia Angell, MD, Senior Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine, HMS, moderator.
How should physicians care for dying patients who find their suffering intolerable despite intensive palliative care? Is there a moral distinction between honoring a patient’s request to withdraw life-sustaining treatment and honoring a request for medication to hasten death? After 14 years, is Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act a success? Three prominent lawyers with very different views will discuss these questions, as Massachusetts considers whether to follow in Oregon’s path.