Causes: Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Social Action & Advocacy, Right to Die & Euthanasia
Mission: Compassion & Choices improves care, expands options and empowers everyone to chart their end-of-life journey.
Results: For more than 40 years, by using a comprehensive strategy including legislative advocacy, grassroots organizing, media outreach and litigation, Compassion & Choices, our affiliates, and our predecessor organizations have led most of the significant advances in the movement to expand and improve end-of-life-options and care. Highlights of our successes include:** Pioneered the medical model of aid in dying that helps ensure that doctors can ethically practice aid in dying in an open, legitimate and accessible way, and integrates the option into patients’ end-of-life care. The culmination of that work was the publication of clinical criteria in the Journal of Palliative Medicine in December 2015.** Compassion & Choices is dedicated to the authorization and implementation of expanded end-of-life options. Medical aid in dying is authorized in eleven jurisdictions:Oregon (1994, ballot initiative); Washington (2008, ballot initiative); Montana (2009, state Supreme Court decision); Vermont (2013, legislation); California (2015, legislation); Colorado (2016, ballot initiative); Washington, D. C. (2017, legislation); Hawai’i (2018, legislation); New Jersey (2019, legislation); Maine (2019, legislation); and New Mexico (2021, legislation). ** Protected medical aid-in-dying laws in Oregon, California and Washington, D. C. ** Developed the first national end-of-life consultancy program in 1993, which offers patients and their families tools, information and emotional support on the full range of available end-of-life options. ** Advocated for the successful adoption of a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rule allowing the agency to reimburse doctors for advance healthcare planning discussions. ** Legitimized palliative sedation as a recognized medical practice by advancing the court case that recognized that dying patients have a constitutional right to receive as much pain medication as necessary, even if it advances the time of death, in the U. S. Supreme Court decision Vacco v. Quill (1997). ** Launched Finish Strong Tools to empower patients with life-threatening diseases, including dementia, to get the care that reflects their goals, priorities and values. ** Pioneered the use of and transformed advance directives from strictly legal documents to a values-based approach for communicating end-of-life priorities. Compassion & Choices is one of the leading providers of advance directives, developed a dementia provision, and created one of the early and most widely disseminated toolkits to help translate peoples’ values into care preferences.
Target demographics: Help people of all demographic groups approach life’s end equipped with information and encouraged to claim their voice.
Direct beneficiaries per year: Millions of people and their loved ones
Geographic areas served: Nationwide
Programs: End-of-Life Care Planning, Community Outreach, Legal Advocacy, Political Advocacy, Access Campaigns, Federal Relations, Volunteer
Mission: Compassion & Choices improves care, expands options and empowers everyone to chart their end-of-life journey.
Results: For more than 40 years, by using a comprehensive strategy including legislative advocacy, grassroots organizing, media outreach and litigation, Compassion & Choices, our affiliates, and our predecessor organizations have led most of the significant advances in the movement to expand and improve end-of-life-options and care. Highlights of our successes include:** Pioneered the medical model of aid in dying that helps ensure that doctors can ethically practice aid in dying in an open, legitimate and accessible way, and integrates the option into patients’ end-of-life care. The culmination of that work was the publication of clinical criteria in the Journal of Palliative Medicine in December 2015.** Compassion & Choices is dedicated to the authorization and implementation of expanded end-of-life options. Medical aid in dying is authorized in eleven jurisdictions:Oregon (1994, ballot initiative); Washington (2008, ballot initiative); Montana (2009, state Supreme Court decision); Vermont (2013, legislation); California (2015, legislation); Colorado (2016, ballot initiative); Washington, D. C. (2017, legislation); Hawai’i (2018, legislation); New Jersey (2019, legislation); Maine (2019, legislation); and New Mexico (2021, legislation). ** Protected medical aid-in-dying laws in Oregon, California and Washington, D. C. ** Developed the first national end-of-life consultancy program in 1993, which offers patients and their families tools, information and emotional support on the full range of available end-of-life options. ** Advocated for the successful adoption of a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rule allowing the agency to reimburse doctors for advance healthcare planning discussions. ** Legitimized palliative sedation as a recognized medical practice by advancing the court case that recognized that dying patients have a constitutional right to receive as much pain medication as necessary, even if it advances the time of death, in the U. S. Supreme Court decision Vacco v. Quill (1997). ** Launched Finish Strong Tools to empower patients with life-threatening diseases, including dementia, to get the care that reflects their goals, priorities and values. ** Pioneered the use of and transformed advance directives from strictly legal documents to a values-based approach for communicating end-of-life priorities. Compassion & Choices is one of the leading providers of advance directives, developed a dementia provision, and created one of the early and most widely disseminated toolkits to help translate peoples’ values into care preferences.
Target demographics: Help people of all demographic groups approach life’s end equipped with information and encouraged to claim their voice.
Direct beneficiaries per year: Millions of people and their loved ones
Geographic areas served: Nationwide
Programs: End-of-Life Care Planning, Community Outreach, Legal Advocacy, Political Advocacy, Access Campaigns, Federal Relations, Volunteer
info@compassionandchoices.org
8156 S Wadsworth Blvd Unit E-162, Littleton, CO 80128
800-247-7421
Civil Rights
Littleton
