Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Reports/Studies

“The Quest to Die With Dignity: An Analysis of Americans’ Values, Opinions, and Attitudes Concerning End-of-Life Care” is an important report by American Health Decisions commissioned in 1997 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The report is based on extensive focus groups interviews of 385 Americans in 32 cities, and covers how citizens feels about a wide variety of issues from trust in their physicians to advance directives to apprehension about being a burden on family members.

“Values Near the End of Lives: Grassroots Perspectives and Cultural Diversity on End-of-Life Care” was prepared by Bruce Jennings, former Executive Vice President of The Hastings Center as a background paper for the New York State Partnership to Improve End-of-Life Care. It is a careful analysis of the 1990s, during which time changes in care at the end of life included the Cruzan case decided by the United State Supreme Court, the comprehensive survey of clinical care described in the SUPPORT study, and the controversial work of groups and individuals advocating legal recognition of a right to die and physician-assisted aid in dying.