The World Federation of Right to Die Societies
and Dying With Dignity
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and more . . .
Deborah Annetts is the Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, the leading research organisation in the United Kingdom on end-of-life issues, along with being the leading supplier of living wills in the UK. Deborah read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University before working in the National Health Service. Following the NHS, she became a solicitor and was a partner at the leading human rights practice Stephens Innocent. Deborah, along with Lord Joel Joffe, was the co-author of the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill that was recently before the British House of Lords.
Dr. Robert Buckman, a medical oncologist at the Toronto-Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre, world-class expert on interpersonal communication, and humourist. Dr. Buckman´s techniques are taught at hospitals and medical schools around the world. Communicating difficult messages has always been one of Dr. Buckman's critical skills, and laughter some of his best medicine. In recent years, he has parlayed his remarkable abilities into a series of successful television and video projects, including a medical training series with friend John Cleese of Monty Python fame. He has written books on everything from skin care to how to provide help and support to terminally ill patients.
Helen Buem, RN is Director of Clinical Services at Compassion & Choices. In this role she provides information and support to terminally ill clients and their families around the United States. She heads up the clinical arm of Compassion´s Pain Relief Advocacy Program that seeks accountability for the under-treatment of pain in the terminally ill. Helen is a graduate of UCLA, the University of Washington and took an advanced degree in nursing from The University of Illinois at Chicago. She has worked in paediatric and adult oncology, home care and hospice nursing and developed a bedside consultation service for the Ethics Program at a major medical center. Her graduate studies included research into nurses´ attitudes toward cancer and palliative care. She is a member of the American Society for Pain Management Nurses and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association.
Barbara Coombs-Lee, President, Compassion & Choices, USA. Barbara Coombs-Lee practiced as a nurse and physician assistant for 25 years before beginning a career in law and health policy. Since then, she has devoted her professional life to individual choice and empowerment in health care. As a private attorney, counsel to the Oregon State Senate, a managed care executive, and finally as a Chief Petitioner for the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, she has championed initiatives that enable individuals to consider a complete range of choices and to be full participants in their health care decisions.
Jocelyn Downie, Canada Research Chair in Health and Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS and author of Dying Justice: A Case for Decriminalizing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Canada. Jocelyn Downie brings graduate training in both philosophy and law to her work at the intersection of law, ethics and health care. Her recent work has focused primarily on assisted death, research involving humans, genetics and women´s health. Her research is interdisciplinary, collaborative and geared both to contributing to academic literature and to effecting change in health law and policy.
George Felos, an internationally recognized legal expert in right-to-die cases, George Felos is best known as the attorney for Michael Schiavo. He also successfully argued the landmark Florida case that helped establish an individual's constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical treatment, Guardianship of Browning. Mr. Felos graduated from Boston University School of Law, has practiced in Pinellas County, Florida, since 1978, was a founding member of the National Legal Advisors Committee on Choice in Dying, and served as Board Chair of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, the largest non-profit hospice in the world. He is also a classical pianist, yoga teacher, hospice volunteer, saltwater fisherman, and guest minister to various churches in his spare time.
Martin Frith, M.Div., RMFT, is Coordinator, of the Client Support Program at Dying With Dignity. Martin has over 20 years experience in health care and counselling services with a particular interest in grief, bereavement and end-of-life issues. Martin is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counselling and holds Clinical Membership in the Ontario Division of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. He is past Chair of the Board for the Toronto Adult Grief Support Program and a member of the Bereavement Ontario Network.
Derek Humphry, Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Final Exit Network USA, author of the best selling book Final Exit, and founder of the original Hemlock Society; past president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies.
Gary Hyndman is a former Unitarian Universalist minister who for the past seven years has worked as a reporter for the Greenville Journal in Greenville, SC USA. A native of Charleston, SC, Gary graduated from the University of South Carolina at Columbia, and the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, one of the oldest Lutheran seminaries in North America. Gary served for many years as a minister in the United Methodist Church before moving to the Unitarian Universalist denomination. It was while serving the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC that he met Brian Baco, the subject of his book, "Breathe".
Dr. Michael Irwin qualified as a physician in London in 1955. He worked with the United Nations for thirty-two years, as the UN Medical Director in New York for ten of those years. Michael was instrumental in the development and acceptance of the pro-choice living wills now widely in use in the UK. In 2003, he was arrested for conspiring to help a terminally-ill friend end his life. Resulting from this assistance, he was struck off the British Medical Register. Dr. Irwin was President of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies from 2002 to 2004, he has been a board member since 2000. Presently, he is on the Council of Friends At The End, which is based in Scotland. He founded The Last Choice in 2005. This small group advises, assists and escorts terminally-ill Britons to Zurich, where an assisted death with Dignitas is possible.
Ann Jackson is CEO of Oregon Hospice Association (OHA), a position she has held for 16 years. She was educated at George H Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University and at Portland State University, both in Oregon. Ann is a co-investigator researching the experience of Oregon's hospices with the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, in partnership with the Portland VA Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry and the School of Nursing at Oregon Health and Science University. OHA is recognized as an accrediting body for hospices and keeps the Hospice Registry on behalf of the State of Oregon. All Oregonians have access to hospice and comfort care.
Lord Joel Joffe, a member of the British House of Lords, and sponsor of a bill allowing physician aid-in-dying which is currently before the UK Parliament. Lord Joffe was born in South Africa and worked as a human rights lawyer, representing Nelson Mandela in the infamous Rivonia Trial in 1963-64. He later moved to the United Kingdom and worked in the financial services industry, as well as the voluntary sector. He was associated with Oxfam in various roles between 1982 and 2001, and was Oxfam´s Chair from 1995-2001.
Dr. Rob Jonquière, MD, CEO NVVE (Right to Die Society), The Netherlands. Dr. Jonquière received his MD in 1972 and was a practicing family doctor from 1972 through 1985 when be became the head of vocational training at VU Amsterdam and Rijks Universteit Leiden, a post he held for 11 years. From 1996 to 1999, he was the Sector Manager of "Care for the Elderly", Public Mental Health Institute (RIAGG ZHN), Leiden. As CEO of NVVE, he has made valuable contributions to the legalisation of physician aid-in-dying and has helped make it possible for a patient to get the care they request without asking their doctors to commit a crime.
Dr. Richard MacDonald graduated from the University of Alberta in 1952. He practiced in Alberta and California. Richard has been active in executive positions in medical organizations, serving as chief of staff at hospitals where he worked. He became the first Medical Director of the Hemlock Society USA in 1993. He has made many presentations at medical and other gatherings on the subject of ‘Care for the Terminally Ill’. His philosophy is that assisted or hastened death must be included in the continuum of care for those with no hope of improvement. He served as President of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies from 2000 to 2002.
Evelyn Martens, a recent recipient of the Humanist of the Year Award from the Humanist Association of Canada and compassionate advocate of the right to die. In 2002, Evelyn Martens was charged with assisting the suicides of two individuals. Under Canadian law, Ms. Martens faced up to 14 years in jail for each charge. It was proven that Ms. Martens was present at the time of each death but that she did not aid or abet either suicide, and in November 2004, she was found not guilty of all charges. Evelyn Martens´ brave stand on the right to die made headline news around the world and brought the issue out into the open for discussion and debate.
Lesley Martin is a Trustee of Dignity New Zealand, an organization dedicated to focusing on awareness of and education on issues surrounding end-of-life decisions in New Zealand. She is a publisher, author, speaker and registered nurse. She is the author of two books, both documenting her life following the death of her mother in 1999. In 2003 Lesley was arrested and charged with Attempted Murder, stood trial in March 2004, resulting in a 15 month jail sentence, the statutory 7 ½ months of which were served at Arohata Women´s Prison in 2004.
Dr. Henry Morgentaler, MD, a leader of the pro-choice movement in Canada. During the 1970s and 1980s Dr. Mogentaler was tried several times on performing illegal abortions, indeed resulting in time in prison. Ultimately, this struggle was instrumental in overturning Canada´s abortion law. He was the first President of the Humanist Association of Canada.
Dr. Philip Nitschke MD, founder and director of Exit International, Australia. Dr. Nitschke successfully campaigned to have a legal euthanasia law passed in Australia´s Northern Territory and assisted four people in ending their lives before the law was struck down by the federal government nine months later. He continues to provide advice and compassion to those in need. He is the co-author of Killing Me Softly: Voluntary Euthanasia and The Road to the Peaceful Pill.
Arthur Schafer, Director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of Manitoba. Arthur Schafer is also a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy and an Ethics Consultant at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. For 10 years, he was Head of the Section of Bio-Medical Ethics in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Manitoba. He recently served as Visiting Scholar, Green College, Oxford. Professor Schafer has published widely in the fields of moral, social and political philosophy.
Dr. Paul Spiers is a Forensic Neuropsychologist who conducts research at MIT and is an Associate Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. He was educated at McGill and Clark Universities, as well as the University of Paris. In 1994, Paul had a fall from horseback and suffered a traumatic brain and paralyzing spinal cord injury. He is now a wheelchair user. The issue of patients´ rights had always been important to him as a professional, but those rights and the choices provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act became all the more important to him. The issue of choices at the end of life became his focus. He is Chairman of Autonomy, an organization that represents the interests of people with disabilities who wish to exercise choice in all aspects of their lives, including choice at the end of life.
Dr. Rodney Syme works part-time as a consulting urologist. He has had an extensive clinical experience with cancer and spinal injured patients. That experience has led to the view that people with unbearable and unrelievable suffering should be able to choose the time, place and manner of