ABSTRACT
Compassion offers consultation regarding the broad range of end-of-life options. These include pain management, palliation, hospice care, and, for mentally competent people who make an enduring and voluntary request, information about hastening death to avoid further suffering. Compassion also works with terminally ill patients in accordance with Oregon's Death with Dignity Act to assist them in obtaining the necessary prescriptions foreffective medications to hasten their death. Compassion's guidelines and the rules under the Death With Dignity act are very precise about the fact that patients must be able to ingest all of the medication by themselves. As she lay comatose for 15 years, Terri Schiavo had no opportunity to make her personal wishes known regarding end-of-life decisions. Without the proper directive and medical proxy, it was left up to her husband and parents to decide for her. What resulted was a tragic drama of bitterness and a political and media frenzy that made her ultimate death a national disgrace.
