Compassion & Choices
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Compassion & Choices is a national nonprofit organization working to improve patients’ rights and choices at the end of life. It was formed by the merging of two choice-in-dying organizations in 2005: Compassion in Dying and End-of-Life Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society). With approximately 40,000 supporters and 60 chapters, it is the largest organization of its kind in the United States.
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[edit] Terminally ill patient services
Compassion & Choices operates the End-of-Life Consultation program, which provides counselors who talk with terminally ill patients and their families at no cost. Professional counselors and trained volunteers work by phone or in person to offer assistance in completing advance directives living wills; referrals to local services including hospice and illness-specific support groups; advice on adequate pain and symptom management; and information on safe, effective methods for hastening death as an option of last resort.
[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 establishes 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.
