By Paul Nasella, Special Writer
An affiliate of Final Exit Network, a national organization that supports the right to die for those suffering from incurable conditions, has been formed in central New Jersey. The group will hold its first meeting at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton on Cherry Hill Road.
Ted Goodwin, national president of Final Exit Network, will speak. He is expected to review the group’s purpose and the role of volunteers as “exit guides,” who work as intermediaries between the Final Exit Network and individuals looking to end their lives.
According to Bob Levine of Princeton, a member of the local group, which was formed in January, although Final Exit cannot physically assist an individual to procure the means of their death, it can assist by providing information on how and where to procure those means, due to First Amendment rights.
”We tell them how to do it,” Mr. Levine said. “We can’t actually get the drugs or get the helium or the plastic bag. We can’t actually assist them because it’s a felony.”
According to Mr. Levine, once the necessary paperwork is sent and reviewed by the Final Exit Network, persons are assigned two exit guides who verify patient information and report back to the organization.
”We also will be there with them if they choose to do so,” Mr. Levine said.
If a person does chose to end his or her life, the exit guide makes sure all the necessary preparations are made before administering a trial run to ensure the process will be painless for all parties involved. The exit guides are the last two people the person sees before they die.
Mr. Goodwin will be joined at the meeting by David Leven, executive director of Compassion & Choices, NY. Mr. Leven is an expert on the under-treatment of pain and advance directives and worked to have legislation introduced and enacted in New York last year to improve pain and palliative care and to increase the number of people who complete healthcare proxies.
Compassion & Choices is active in legislatures and courts to “reform laws that limit a patient’s rights to excellent end-of-life care and personal control and active in representing the interests of patients at the U.S. Supreme Court,” according to its Web site.
Both groups evolved from the Hemlock Society in the 1980s and follow Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.
Enacted in 1997, the act allows terminally-ill residents to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose.
