KNOW, the Magazine for Paralegals Fall/Winter 2013.2 | Page 46

have not completed a health care directive. In
other surveys, 70% people say they want to die
at home, but in reality, 70% of people actually die
in hospitals or nursing homes.

America and its primary missions included
providing information to dying individuals and
supporting legislation permitting physician assisted suicide.

We must also consider that the baby boomer
generation in the United States is steadily rising.
In 2009, there were an estimated 39.6 million
people aged 65 years or older, and by 2030, this
number is expected to rise to 72.1 million people.
So why do we as a society fear the discussion of
death? Is it because making end-of-life decisions
requires us to face mortality and reminds us that
our days are numbered, our clocks are ticking, and
that the end is not far but ever so near? Don’t let
denial and fear win because in the end it is not
easier and in fact may result in a bad death.

This group’s efforts were exceedingly controversial on many levels, including the moral, religious,
political, and legal realms, and continued to be so
throughout its existence, walking the tightrope
until the end of its namesake in 2003. The group’s
name changed to End of Life Choices, then to Compassion in Dying, and finally to “Compassion and
Choices.”
This provocative movement spurred a separate
group called the Final Exit Network. You may ask,
are these “exit guides” relevant today? Surprisingly
yes, both the Final Exit Network and Compassion
and Choices continue to operate. Have their missions changed? The Final Exit Network supports the
human right to a death with dignity, and Compassion and Choices supports, educates and advocates
for choice and care at the end of life. These rightto-die groups walk a very slippery slope and are
more often than not involved in legal court battles
around the nation.

Reality shows that the population is aging, yet
it also reveals that individuals want to voice their
opinion and be respected by others concerning
their end-of-life wishes. Therefore, it’s important
to voice your end-of-life decisions by putting
them in writing.
The second step is to communicate your wishes
to your loved ones and to your medical team.
Communication is vital. Without it, families are left
with uncertainty and a lack of knowledge of what
their loved ones desired in the end, leading to a
broken family that harbors the pain of losing a
loved one for the rest of their lives.

Why? Because there are currently 34 states that
have statutes explicitly criminalizing assisted suicide. The indictments against these groups are real,
from the Georgia Supreme Court to the Minnesota
Court of Appeals, for violations of the states’ protective statutes. Ironically, the common defense
utilized by these groups involves the First Amendment’s freedom of speech guarantee. These exit
guide groups may appear as phantoms in our legal
system, but they strangely remind me of the folk-

Exit Guides…Phantoms or the Grim
Reaper?
As with any controversial and ethical issue out
there, such as death and end-of-life planning,
there are extremist groups, much to my dismay. In
my thirteen years as an estate planning and
probate paralegal, I was astonished to hear and
learn that these “exit guide” groups do, in fact,
exist and have been mane