To Gently Leave This Life: The Right to Die: 2018 Updates Edition

Elaine Feuer

Oct 2013 · Blue Danube Publishing

About this ebook

The concept of a “good death” has been debated since the beginning of civilization. In the 21st Century, longer lifespans and advances in medicine have resulted in new legislation regarding an individual’s “right to die.” The option to end one’s own life, when pain becomes intolerable or the quality of life is nonexistent, is an issue at the forefront of modern society. Who among us would trade places with a patient, dependent on machines and other people, for every aspect of their life? Who among us wouldn’t choose doctor-assisted death, if that option were available? During the last two decades, the states of Oregon, Washington, and Montana passed euthanasia legislation, and in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, similar end-of-life regulations were authorized. However, in 2012, two court cases examining physician-assisted death could lead to new international precedents: Gloria Taylor, who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease, became the first person in Canada to be granted the “right to die” via a “personal exemption” by British Columbia’s Supreme Court; in Britain, Tony Nicklinson, who suffered from “locked-in syndrome” and could only communicate by blinking, died from pneumonia after refusing food and fluids subsequent to a High Court decision that refused to grant him assisted death. In this age of medical technology, of machines sustaining lives irrespective of quality of life and dignity, we often discount the concept of a “good death.” Allowing terminally ill people to pass on quickly and peacefully does not encroach on the civil liberties of others. Euthanasia legislation allows patients to operate within the medical system and ease their anxiety, while giving friends and family peace of mind. Assessing the quality of life, and allowing patients who suffer from debilitating pain and dependence on others to gently leave this life, gives people a dignified alternative. Read To Gently Leave This Life to learn what you need to know about end-of-life decisions. To Gently Leave This Life is the perfect reference book for the grassroots activist, legislator, and for people who are dealing with their own or a loved one’s terminal illness.

Ratings and reviews

To Gently Leave This Life: The Right to Die, is an excellent handbook for those who are living through the struggle now, and those new to the fight who are just realizing what could be in store for them when there is no way out of a prolonged, agonizing death. Elaine Feuer has succeeded in compiling the progress of the right-to-die movement in her carefully researched, helpfully illustrated, easily read short volume. This overview explains, especially to the naive reader, what the human tragedies were that precipitated changes in the law toward further control by patients to control their own deaths. She presents the safeguards and the modest use of these laws to reduce suffering at the end of life and the arguments against these changes. Right-to-die advocates around the world are moving fast, making it hard to keep such a book up-to-date, but Feuer has worked assiduously to make her information as accurate as possible, to demonstrate the importance of people being able to have more say about when and how the end will come. FAYE GIRSH, president, WORLD FEDERATION OF RIGHT-TO-DIE SOCIETIES. To Gently Leave This Life is an excellent representation of a huge crisis, leaving me with an understanding and urgency to take action, or to somehow make end-of-life decisions more visible to humanity. A very powerful and moving book. At times I had tears and could feel the pain and the plea for compassion from these people, who are either terminally ill or suffering from an incurable disease. All of these voices not heard from, but crying in anguish all the same. Elaine Feuer thoroughly covers the facts and situations of real people, expressed objectively yet profoundly, with information anyone can relate to and understand. It is time to help humanity with this heartfelt book, which needs to be brought into the light and to readers all over the world. ERNA GRINJESCH, EG’s REALITY PRESS  Elaine Feuer’s book, To Gently Leave This Life: The Right To Die, is a quick, must read for anyone who wants to understand the history of the movement. People like Elaine who have watched a loved one die a painful, slow death do not want anyone else to suffer a similar fate. But the fight to secure the legal Right-To-Die with dignity, peacefully, in every state requires that we all get educated and motivated to ensure it happens. Reading To Gently Leave This Life is a crucial first step in that education and motivation process. SEAN CROWLEY, Media Relations Manager, COMPASSION & CHOICES. An excellent way to help spread the word about the Right-To-Die movement. Another good way is to join the Final Exit Network and get involved. The few of us that feel strongly about having a free choice in determining how much suffering we are willing to tolerate, should be writing letters to the media and doing everything we can to fight the religious right who wish to impose their beliefs on us. KEN LEONARD, FINAL EXIT NETWORK To Gently Leave This Life is a very compassionate and relevant book for the 21st Century. I could feel the agony of the terminally ill, forced to live in pain and without dignity until their very last second. All of us will be faced with end-of-life decisions, and after reading this book I know that I want the right to decide on how I leave this life. CAFOXXYY, AMAZON REVIEW

About the author

Elaine Feuer is the CEO of Blue Danube Publishing. Her new book, Chaya's Angels: A Spiritual Journey with Down Syndrome, co-authored with Chaya Ben Baruch, is available for purchase. When Chaya Ben Baruch gave birth to her sixth child, a son with Down syndrome, she led her family on a spiritual journey, moving from Alaska to Israel, and adopting more children with special needs, on the way. It is our aspiration for the reader to appreciate the uniqueness and joy that Chaya and her husband, Yisroel, have experienced as parents of children with Downs, and to open the hearts of people, across the globe.

Elaine is the author of Traveling In and Out of Heaven. Her new book, Traveling In and Out of Heaven, is the story of her brother’s five-month battle against esophageal cancer, encompassing: the profound love between a brother and sister as they struggle with the torment of an unbearable illness; the love and support of family and friends; and the treacherous betrayal of a daughter. The poignant and agonizing issues in this narrative are circumstances that readers could encounter at some point in their lifetime: an unsigned medical proxy; next-of-kin power over medical decisions; life support; and a duplicitous legal petition. Once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop! 

Elaine also wrote the critically acclaimed exposé, Innocent Casualties: The FDA’s War Against Humanity – which is now available in its fourth edition as an eBook: Irene Alleger, editor for Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients wrote: “Innocent Casualties manages to make the blood boil in righteous anger, because it makes the FDA’s abuse of power so personal…  Ms. Feuer takes the reader step-by-step through the nonsensical tactics, deceit, and police mentality.”  

Blue Danube recently published an enthralling new memoir, The Last Waltz: Love, Death & Betrayal by Professor Sean Davison. In 2006, Sean cared for his terminally ill mother, Pat Ferguson (a psychiatrist), during the final three months of her life. The Last Waltz is a true story about the extraordinary love between a mother and son, and how their informed decisions lead to unforeseen consequences: A sister betrays her brother; a son is charged with murder; Archbishop Desmond Tutu requests bail, igniting a public debate about voluntary euthanasia and the right-to- die in South Africa, New Zealand, and in countries across the globe.

Elaine has worked in the medical division of Little, Brown & Company and freelanced as a research and development coordinator for a variety of film and television projects, including the critically acclaimed films, Imagine: John Lennon; 25 x 5: The Continuing Adventure of the Rolling Stones; Elvis: The Great Performances; Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women. Elaine obtained history and criminology degrees – “Graduating With Distinction” – from the University of Toronto; received “Academic Excellence in Editing” from the University of Massachusetts, Boston; and was an “Ontario Scholar.”