Common questions, plain answers.

The World Federation was founded in 1980 at a conference in Oxford, following the first international meeting of right-to-die societies in Tokyo, Japan, in 1976. It has grown to represent 64 societies around the world.

In the jurisdictions where it is legal, assisted dying is an end-of-life choice for people who meet the eligibility criteria set by the law in their jurisdiction. Each of these laws requires the request to be voluntary.

Competence, or decisional capacity, is a person's ability to make a particular decision for themselves. The legal test differs between jurisdictions, but most ask whether the person can understand the information relevant to the decision, retain it, weigh it up and communicate their choice (this is the test in the Mental Capacity Act for England and Wales, for example). Making a choice that others think unwise does not by itself show a lack of capacity, and someone can have capacity for one decision while lacking it for another.

Informed consent is the permission a patient gives a doctor to carry out a medical procedure, after the patient has been made fully aware of the facts, implications and consequences of that procedure.

Used by opponents of assisted dying, the argument is that assisted dying laws inevitably widen in scope once passed. The World Federation strongly disagrees. The Federation's view is that where a law has been amended, the jurisdiction's own legislators did so after seeing how the law worked in practice.

Assisted dying is the term the World Federation of Right to Die Societies uses for procedures to end life for a person who is suffering. It includes the provision of medication to a person for self-administration, as well as the administration of medication by a health practitioner, in both cases causing death.

End-of-life care is the term the Federation uses for the support and care given at the end of life. It includes palliative care (caring for a dying person), respecting the wish to refuse medical treatment (the person dies from the disease) and assisted dying.

Advance care planning is a process that extends the right of competent adults to guide their medical care into periods when they can no longer make decisions. Done thoroughly, it has three steps: thinking through one's values and preferences, talking about them with others, and writing them down.

Some ethicists have argued that what begins as a patient's right to request an assisted death under specified conditions will eventually become a doctor's duty. The Federation's position is that medical professionals should never be required to assist in dying, just as they are not required to carry out other procedures they object to.

The Federation believes that being denied a peaceful and controlled death can have devastating consequences for mental and physical health, not just for the person attempting suicide but for those who love and care for them.

The Federation points to reports from several countries of people who, with no lawful assistance available, ended their own lives by violent means, and of attempts that failed and left the person in more pain.

In jurisdictions that publish figures, fewer people complete an assisted death than are approved for one; many say that knowing the option exists is itself a reassurance.

The Federation believes that knowing an assisted death is available if needed helps people carry on living. Whether assisted dying laws change overall suicide rates is still an open research question: a 2022 systematic review found the evidence limited and mixed.