HAVING A GOOD DEATH IS OUR FINAL HUMAN RIGHT

We can’t avoid death, but the prospect of dying became a lot less terrifying when Parliament legalized physician-assisted death in 2016. Now, mentally competent adults who are terminally ill and suffering grievously from intolerable and incurable conditions have the right to ask for a doctor’s help in ending their lives. 

Does the law go far enough? No, says Sandra Martin in this timely and inspiring book about palliative care and patient autonomy. She delivers compelling stories about the patients the law ignores: people with life-crushing diseases who are condemned to suffer because their natural deaths are not reasonably foreseeable.

Martin argues that Canada can set an example for the world if it can strike a balance between compassion for the suffering and protection of the vulnerable, between individual choice and social responsibility. And she shows us the path forward as she charts the history of the right-to-die movement here and abroad. A Good Death asks the tough question none of us can avoid: How do you want to die? The answer will change your life—and your death.