Compassion in Dying: Stories of Dignity and Choice
Barbara Coombs Lee
These rich stories reveal the complexities of end-of-life issues and the human need to affirm deeply held values. By sharing these stories we hope to help others confronting similar situations and help society understand how the issues of a debate play out in the lives of people who might be their neighbors, their friends, their role models.
—Barbara Coombs Lee, Editor
Since 1993 Compassion in Dying Federation has been advocating for a social revolution that seeks more humane and caring options for dying individuals. From its inception, this organization has worked to support and counsel individuals on how to achieve a peaceful and humane death.
Many amazing stories have unfolded from individuals who have turned to Compassion in Dying, and specifically, those seeking end-of-life choice with Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. Compassion in Dying, edited by Barbara Coombs Lee, is a compilation of dying individuals’ stories as well as stories by family members, friends, and spiritual leaders who respect and support the particular choices of dying individuals. Fittingly, Oregon publisher NewSage Press published this book in conjunction with Compassion in Dying Federation’s 10th anniversary in 2003. NewSage Press also published Governor Barbara Roberts’ bestseller, Death Without Denial, Grief Without Apology, which is now in a Second Edition, published in 2018.
The stories in this book are from Oregonians who sought the choice to use the Death with Dignity Act. The Oregon experience with assisted dying teaches that when patients are empowered by choice and control in how they die, they experience renewed hope and courage. Interestingly, most people who obtain the necessary medication to hasten their death do not ultimately use it, but rather experience profound peace of mind knowing they have an option to escape intolerable suffering.
Oregon’s law has been in place since 1994 and during that time Oregon citizens have used the law sparingly. The many safeguards and guidelines established by the state have allowed its implementation without complications. As a result, Oregon has become a national model for end-of-life care. Our hope is that the stories in Compassion in Dying will bring to the forefront the experiences of individuals who have the choices the law allows— moving beyond the judicial and political wranglings that threaten personal choice and dignity at the end of life.
Praise
What is striking is how much joy and love there are in these stories. There is proof here, in the voices of these brave and eloquent people, that dying can be a choice—and a good one.
The heart and soul of Compassion's mission has been to support patients and families facing difficult decisions about choice at the end-of-life. This is an important book for skilled caregivers.
Thanks to the foresight of Barbara Coombs Lee, the moving family dramas told in this book were able to occur. A must read for those rare stories of deaths gone well!
However you react to Oregon’s legal choice for its terminally ill citizens, I hope you will withhold judgment until you have read the moving and honest stories that fill the pages of this unique book. Compassion in Dying offers you a front row seat to caring scenes of death bravely shared by family and loved ones. The author, Barbara Coombs Lee, is a leader of a social movement whose time has come.
The job of our government is to protect the freedom of religious choice. The Oregon law does exactly that, and this book tells many deeply moving stories of why that is so very important.
Barbara Coombs Lee and the organization, Compassion in Dying, have greatly improved awareness of the needs for the terminally ill, and this is a tremendous public service.
If Compassion in Dying did not exist, then those of us who believe that it is the essence of tyranny for government to insist on scripting not only the details of our lives but the manner of our deaths would have had to invent it.
About The Editor
When this book was first published in 2003, Barbara Coombs Lee was President of Compassion in Dying in Portland, Oregon. She helped to build a nonprofit organization that provides legal activism, public education, and client services to expand and protect the rights of the terminally ill. She is now president of Compassion & Choices, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding and protecting the rights of the terminally ill. In 2019, Coombs Lee published Finish Strong: Putting Your Priorities First at Life’s End, a 294-page memoir and guide for transforming the end-of-life experience by giving readers a sense of their own authority—empowering them to ask questions, test assumptions, and decide on a course of treatment that honors the character and meaning of their lives.
She practiced as a nurse and physician’s 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, as counsel to the Oregon State Senate, as a managed care executive, and finally, as Chief Petitioner for Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, she has championed initiatives that enable individuals to consider a wide range of choices to be full participants in their final health care decisions.
Coombs Lee has been on interviewed by many of the nation’s leading media outlets and has presented TEDx talks, Stanford MedicineX, CUSP Conference, Plato Society, American Bar Association, Older Women’s League, American Pain Society, Oregon State Bar, Cleveland City Club, Americans for Better Care of the Dying, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Pain Society, and the World Federation Right to Die Societies.
