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Highlights:
Our Deepest Fears | Living Wills Can Fail | Surrogates Can Let You Down | A Legal Peaceful Choice | Why Caring Advocates

Out of ten people, only two will have a sudden death.

If you were one of the other eight or nine people, and your chronic disease led you someday to reach the point where…
the term existing seemed more apt to describe your condition than living…
there was no hope for improving the burden of your pain and suffering…
your existence only emotionally and financially drained your loved ones…
your continued medical treatment was obviously and definitely pointless…
but you could still exist for an indefinitely long time…

Would you want to consider exercising an option that would let Nature take its course? --Especially if the procedure was both legal and peaceful?

If your answer is “Yes,” then read or listen to A Legal and Peaceful Choice. It offers a current, comprehensive guide to help you create a legal, peaceful transition for you, or for your loved one – either right now if you are facing the last chapter of life; or in the future, by effective strategic planning. This book is the only place we know of, where you can find the information you need to make this choice.

Let’s face it. As we go through our day-to-day lives, none of us wants to dwell on the process of dying. Yet there are enormous reasons why we should spend adequate time in serious advance planning. One is that decades of hard work to build a nest egg, along with meticulous financial planning, can all be wiped out by the cost of a prolonged chronic illness. How often does this happen? Some financial experts estimate that one-third of families loose everything.

We consider Voluntarily Refusing Food and Fluid one way to let Nature take its course. Although much about this choice is misunderstood, we recognize that it is not right for everyone. While we deal head-on with potentially awesome challenges from certain powerful political and religious opponents, such as Pope John Paul II’s March 2004 Allocution, we do so with respect and balance. The Pope used strong words to characterize withdrawing artificially administered nutrition and hydration – even from someone who has been unconscious for more than a year. If the intent is to hasten dying, the Pope called the act immoral and “euthanasia by omission.” We also quote a more liberal interpretation of the Pope’s statement offered by two leading Catholic ethicists . In our attempt to offer a balanced presentation, we suggest not only what you might do if you live in a rural community where the only hospital is operated by the Catholic Health Association, and you want to Voluntarily Refuse Food and Fluid, we also suggest the precise wording you might consider including in your Advance Directive if you wish to follow the Pope’s teaching, after we warn you that it is possible that a secular ethics committee may authorize your doctor to “pull the plug” because they decide your clinical situation is “futile.”

While Refusing Food and Fluid may at first appear contrary to our society’s positive regard for the process of nurturing, a thorough understanding of the needs of the dying reveals that in many cases, Voluntarily Refusing Food and Fluid is the most comfortable, peaceful, and emotionally nurturing option for all concerned. If you are still trying to decide what you want in the future, you can learn more about what it is like to die by Voluntarily Refusing Food and Fluid for both patients and families by reading several poignant memoirs and the two dozen answers to such relevant questions as, “Is Voluntary Refusal of Food and Fluid comfortable?