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Patient Choices at End of Life – Vermont
is a state-wide organization active in promoting optimum end-of-life care as desired by a majority of Vermonters.

Its mission and directors are a blend of two prior organizations: Death With Dignity Vermont and End-of-Life Choices Vermont. 

Patient Choices is an advocacy organization that seeks to educate
Vermonters about end-of-life options and to influence policy,
regulations and practice that affect the terminally ill.  It works to promote the best possible pain control, palliative and hospice care, and to enable terminally ill patients to choose the timing and manner of dying if even the best of care fails to prevent or alleviate unbearable suffering.

End-of-Life Care and Pain Management
is the subject of Act 25.  It was passed by both houses and signed by Governor Douglas in May 2009.

Identical bills -- Senate bill S.144 and House bill H.455 -- introduced in April 2009, propose Aid-in-Dying legislation which will bring the Oregon Death with Dignity Act to Vermont and will:

• Guarantee that all adult Vermonters have a full range of legal  end-of-life choices
  
• Assure that mentally-competent persons who are terminally ill have the right to choose the manner and timing of death
  
• Allow a terminally ill, mentally-competent person to avoid the pain of a prolonged dying process by self-administering legally prescribed medication

Whether or not terminal medication is actually taken by an individual, the fact that he/she has control of his/her life is the comfort that is now lacking.

Major provisions of the proposed legislation:

• In the opinion of two physicians, the life expectancy of the patient will be six months or less
• The patient must be mentally competent
• The patient must make two oral requests separated by a waiting period of at least 15 days
• The patient must sign a witnessed written request
• Two doctors must certify that the patient's request is voluntary with no evidence of coercion
• The request is revocable by the patient at any time
• Medication would be prescribed by the doctor and self-administered by the patient
• Voluntary on the part of the doctor
• No criminal liability for a physician, family member or caring friend who is present
• Health or life insurance policies cannot be nullified if a patient utilizes the law to end his/her life
• Does not permit euthanasia
• Monitoring by State Health Department

Listen to and watch the remarkable chronicle
of 62-year-old Lovelle Svart.           
A life-affirming woman dying of lung cancer, she recorded a video diary during the last six months of her life. She died on September 28, 2007. 
The newspaper, Oregonian, provided
this opportunity:
Lovelle Svart story

"The time has come"

Television commentary spot featuring Dick Mallary (R), U.S. House of Representatives and Speaker of Vermont House of Representatives, and Jean Mallary, Vermont Ethics Network. Read the transcript.

Television commentary spot featuring Governors Phil Hoff and Madeleine Kunin and Lt. Governor Barbara Snelling on Patient-Directed Dying legislation. Read the transcript.

Patient Choices at End of Life – Vermont is a not-for-profit, independent political action organization based in Vermont. 

Patient Choices at End of Life – Vermont
formerly Death with Dignity Vermont and End-of-Life Choices Vermont
3218 Wake Robin Drive
Shelburne, VT 05482
802-985-9473
E-mail:

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