Compassion & Choices
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Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization focused on patients’ rights and end of life choice. It was formed by the merging of two choice-in-dying organizations in 2004: Compassion in Dying and End-of-Life Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society). The organization claims to have 40,000 members and 52 local chapters. It is the largest organization of its kind in the United States.
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[edit] Terminally Ill Patient Services
Compassion & Choices provides counselors who talk with terminally ill patients and their families through its Client Support Program at no cost. Professional counselors and trained volunteers work by phone or in person to offer assistance in completing advance directives (living will); referrals to local services including hospice and illness-specific support groups; advice on adequate pain and symptom management; and information on patient-directed dying.
[edit] Legal Work
Compassion & Choices’ legal advocacy team litigates patient cases related to ensuring adequate end-of-life care and choice. The Compassion & Choices’ legal advocacy team represented 16 terminally ill patient-plaintiffs at the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Oregon, defeating the Bush administration challenge to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act in January of 2006.
Through litigation, Compassion & Choices seeks to establish a terminally ill patient’s right to pain and symptom management; to voluntarily stop life-sustaining treatments; to request and receive palliative sedation; and to choose aid in dying under state and federal constitutional protections.
Compassion & Choices Action Network is the legislative advocacy arm of Compassion & Choices. The Action Network seeks to pass Oregon-style aid-in-dying legislation throughout the United States; laws that strengthen advance directives; and laws that mandate palliative care training for health care providers.
