Erik Ekholm of the New York Times tried in an article titled “’Aid in Dying’ Movement Takes Hold in Some States” (February 7, 2014) to shed a light on the developments in the different US States. Where Oregon and Washington legalised assisted suicide and states like Montana and Vermont reached the same by Supreme Court decisions, a number of other states work to achieve the same goals.An interesting article, read it here. Derek Humphry of ERGO commented on two shortcomings:
This article, while welcome, has two shortcomings in my view:
- It fails to point out that there are four groups (even at least six; RJ) in the USA campaigning (in different ways) for the right to choose how to die when at life’s end. True, Compassion & Choices is the largest because it absorbed the Hemlock Society in 2003, but there is also the Death With Dignity National Center, the Final Exit Network, and Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization (ERGO). Each group is doing vital work in this important field.I
- n my view the article was blemished by the last two paragraphs referring to the very worst ways in which a person could end life when the reporter wrote :”may resort to what some call a “chemical suicide,” mixing household chemicals to produce a deadly cloud of hydrogen sulphide gas and leaving behind a toxic mess. He is also pondering a heroin overdose.” It’s against such dangerous ways of dying that the four groups are fighting.