From its inception in 1998, our Five Wishes program has made Aging with Dignity the nation’s leading advance care planning organization. We proudly support the right of patient self-determination so that individual wishes for medical treatment at the end of life will be respected and followed.

People disagree on whether euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide are appropriate choices at life’s end. Most countries in the world and states in America prohibit these practices. We believe these laws are sound public policy and oppose changes to them.

There is ample proof that the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide discriminates against the disabled; inevitably leads to a slippery slope for non-terminally ill patients; undermines the doctor-patient relationship; creates perverse cost-savings for government, health insurers, and health care providers; and ensures that the so-called “right to die” will become a duty to die for the poor, those with chronic diseases or cognitive impairment, and others who live at the mercy of society.

Aging with Dignity promotes best practices in palliative care where timely referral to hospice services is routine, pain is managed, patients are accompanied, their suffering is treated with compassion, and their personal, spiritual and emotional needs are met and God-given human dignity maintained. If America’s health care system routinely offered such humane services, public support for the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide would nearly vanish.