Merrell and Krystal discuss Death with Dignity Statutes, and their concerns as estate planners. What about pressures on the elderly? How young is too young for a young adult trying to arrive at such a decision?

Resources

States with Death with Dignity Statutes

Colorado Medical Aid in Dying Statistics

Me Before You, a book by Jojo Moyes

Timestamps

:40 Introduction, Death with Dignity Statutes

1:21 A 17 year old girl in Belgium who used legal assisted suicide to end her life after rape

1:43  Elderly clients under pressure from children to use aid in dying laws?

2:28  States that have these laws and their various names (Medical Aid and Dying, End of Life Options Act, Death with Dignity Act, Patient Choice and Control at the End of Life Act, :  Colorado; California; Hawaii; New Jersey effective August 2019; Oregon; Vermont; Washington; and Washington, D.C.; and Montana rules that nothing prevents a doctor from prescribing meds that would end a patient’s life.

3:28 Colorado’s laws and hurdles

4:55 Vulnerability with elderly clients feeling pressured to die sooner than would be natural, and undue influence

6:21 What if you don’t have a diagnosis?

6:52 If the aid and dying statute is used, the death certificate shows that they died of their condition, or inanation

7:30 Merrell discusses her mother’s own decision to stop eating (where death with dignity was not an option)

9:06 As practioners, Krystal and Merrell discuss the difference that knowing of a terminal diagnosis makes in the counsel they feel comfortable offering.

12:03 Outlook for other states, being a resident of a state in order to take advantage of these kinds of statutes

13:00 Me Before You, the book about the Englishman who went to Sweden to take advantage of their laws

14:03 Discussing this option with clients