Compassion & Choices
| Motto | Expanding choice and improving care at the end of life |
|---|---|
| Type | Legal and legislative advocacy, counseling |
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado |
| Location | |
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Key people
|
Barbara Coombs Lee |
| Website | www.compassionandchoices.org |
Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization in the United States working to improve patient rights and individual choice at the end of life, including access to medical aid in dying. Its primary function is advocating for and ensuring access to end-of-life options, including medical aid in dying.
With over 65,000 supporters and campaigns in nine states, it is the largest organization of its kind in the United States.
Compassion & Choices is the successor to the Hemlock Society, and Compassion In Dying Federation; the organizations merged in 2007. The organization maintains staff in New York, the District of Columbia, California, Washington State (they dismissed WA state staff in 2016; the local org is independent and unaffiliated) Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, Vermont and New Jersey.
Compassion & Choices provides end-of-life consultation for dying patients and their families at no cost. Professional consultants and trained volunteers work by phone or in person to offer assistance in completing advance directives, make referrals to local services including hospice and illness-specific support groups, advice on adequate pain and symptom management, and information on safe, effective and legal methods for aid in dying.
The organization's work is highlighted in the documentary film How to Die in Oregon which won the 2011 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Compassion & Choices integrates medical aid in dying into healthcare by implementing and normalizing them into the standard of care after laws are passed in individual states.
Compassion & Choices litigates patient cases related to ensuring adequate end-of-life care and choice. Through litigation, Compassion & Choices protects terminally ill patients' rights to receive pain and symptom management, to voluntarily stop life-sustaining treatments, to request and receive palliative sedation, and to choose aid in dying under state and federal constitutional protections.
In 1997, Vacco v. Quill legitimized palliative sedation as a recognized medical practice.
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