In Search of Gentle Death: The Fight for Your Right to Die With Dignity

by Richard N. Côté

Death is inevitable. But bad deaths those accompanied by unnecessarily prolonged pain and suffering, often aggravated by immensely costly and frequently futile medical treatments, can be avoided. This book explores the pioneering, highly pragmatic and practical work carried out by the international death-with-dignity movement over the last forty years to eliminate the last bad death. It offers clear and valuable examples of how, through frank communication with caregivers and loved ones and the use of Advance Medical Directives such as living wills, those who are facing the possibility of death in the foreseeable future, and those who help them cope, can greatly minimize or eliminate end-of-life turmoil, family dissention, and pain. It also proposes a comprehensive rethinking of end-of-life-care assumptions and a realignment of strategies to create a caring continuum to meet the rapidly expanding demands for death with dignity in the coming years. Richard Cote' based this unique book on five years of intensive primary source research and more than one hundred in-depth interviews with death-with-dignity pioneers, activists, physicians, nurses, hospice workers, and their patients on four continents. It is written in narrative style for a general audience and intensely documented for the scholar. It illuminates the subject using 92 images and twelve hyperlinks to exclusive YouTube video interviews with death-with-dignity leaders worldwide. It explores the modern history of the death-with-dignity movement through the lives of its founders, leaders, and activists. Using personal case histories from around the world, it also portrays the often heart-breaking conflict between the final wishes of those who are living or dying in pain and the religious, medical, and laws which force them to spend their last days, months, or even years in avoidable pain and suffering against their clearly-stated will. Drawing on the most recent scientific and medical information, it also describes the rapid evolution of legal, dignified, readily available, painless methods which the tortured and the dying can use to hasten their own death without assistance, in the company, if they choose, of their friends and loved ones. PLEASE NOTE : this 379-page book replaces and updates Cote s 42-page 2008 technical booklet (now obsolete and out of print) titled In Search of Gentle A Brief History of the NuTech Group an end-of-life technology development organization. All of NuTech s work is now described fully in Chapter 6 of this new 2012 book.

Genres: Nonfiction

479 pages, Hardcover

First published May 21, 2012

Reviews

[J.A.V. Simson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Search of Gentle Death, by Richard N. Cote

This is a thoroughly researched, humane overview of the death-with-dignity movement in this country and abroad. Cote uses case studies from throughout North America and Europe to put a human face on the end-of-life suffering that has prompted many caring individuals to establish organizations to offer solace and escape – either by their own hands or in the company of others. He chronicles the public turmoil evoked by such organizations as they form and attempt to serve desperate individuals hemmed in by laws and the highly vigilant “pro-life” sector in contemporary society. Physicians used to perform such services, quietly and discreetly, but they no longer dare; malpractice and criminal charges are all too likely. Jack Kevorkian, a principled and stubborn man, paid a price that has served as a warning to others.

Cote chronicles the splitting and fusing of several different groups whose leaders and missions changed with the times and with the laws of their national governments. He tracks, for example, the rise and demise of the Hemlock Society, many of whose members have continued their fight for death with dignity under the new name of Final Exit. He does not shy away from the often doctrinaire and contentious positions of right-to-die organizations and their leaders, which may hinder rather than help the cause of enacting sane and compassionate laws in civilized countries.

He avoids focusing too much on the religious opposition to euthanasia, but it is lurks behind his recounting of fiercely negative public opinion and the absolutist laws that have been passed surrounding this issue. He also hints at the complicity of the medical establishment (especially hospitals) in prolonging life, thereby maximizing income from terminal patients. He holds up Switzerland as a model of humane laws and practices; assisted suicide has become almost a tourist industry there. Perhaps that country is small enough, and the population is autonomous enough, that an independent and forward-looking approach has been legally possible.

Cote ends on an optimistic note, reviewing legal progress favorable to assisted suicide in small European nations (Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg) as well as a very few states in the U.S. He urges everyone to think about these issues and prepare advance directives for end-of-life decisions and a personal proxy. Anyone interested in this subject matter will find this book highly informative and readable. And we should all be interested, because we will all face the end of life some day.

[MKF · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly this book pissed me off! The fact the people are expected to suffer because of other people's opinions and beliefs. I know it is starting to change and there are a few states and countries that allow assisted suicide and even euthanasia but until it is allowed everywhere then it is still a problem. This is a hard read and anybody who cannot handle the details of how people killed themselves then I recommend you do not read it. So many people have had to find ways to kill themselves just to stop the pain of a terminal disease and then many were judged. Those that helped were judged and even faced criminal charges for helping or just being their. It really makes me ashamed to be human if being human means letting our loved one suffer.

[InYourFaceNewYorker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting look at the right-to-die movement beyond the realm of Dr. Jack Kevorkian (but including him too).

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, thorough history of the modern, international right-to-die movement. Supports arguments in favor of allowing physician-assisted suicide.

[cheri carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good

Gives a good look at the right to die a good death and the stupidity of religious zealots forcing their beliefs on others.