{"id":2180,"date":"2023-09-22T21:48:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T21:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/?page_id=2180"},"modified":"2023-12-28T14:48:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T14:48:04","slug":"voluntarily-stopping-eating-drinking-vsed","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/voluntarily-stopping-eating-drinking-vsed\/","title":{"rendered":"Voluntarily Stopping Eating & Drinking (VSED)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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VOLUNTARILY STOPPING EATING AND DRINKING (VSED)<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u201cJust as we strive for dignity and purpose throughout our lives, well before the light fades [i.e., before the sun goes down], we can bring this same dignity and purpose to our deaths, as we each journey into our own good night\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSunita Puri, M.D., That Good Night<\/i>, p. xiii, referring to Dylan Thomas\u2019 poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night<\/i>.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDeath by Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) is not starvation but rather dehydration.\u00a0 Just a few drops of water can keep a person alive for days.\n\nHow long does VSED take?\u00a0 This varies from a few days to a few weeks.\u00a0 The main variable is how strong or weak the person is who is choosing it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If the patient is near death anyway, VSED may take only a few days.\u00a0 If s\/he is strong and healthy, two weeks might be necessary, maybe even a bit longer.\u00a0 VSED is usually undertaken at home.\u00a0 Some consider VSED desirable\u00a0 because it is, unlike Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD)<\/a> or inert gases, reversible; just start eating and drinking again.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Achieving an early exit using Voluntarily Stopping Eating & Drinking (VSED) is simple to state: stop all food and drink, no exceptions.\u00a0\u00a0
But it is a bit more complex to carry out.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Take a patient who is not very close to dying, and is still fairly strong.\u00a0 The first few days he or she will be up and around.\u00a0 S\/he will likely have conversations, maybe walks, with family members who wish to say goodbye.\u00a0 The patient may pass the time at the computer or playing games with family and visitors.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A few have even had a good-bye party.<\/p>

As the body weakens from lack of nutrition and hydration, the person will sleep more, and may need some assistance moving around. At some point the person will not be strong enough to get out of bed.\u00a0 Next the patient will likely go into a coma. Death follows.<\/p>

If the patient is already weak at the beginning, for example barely able to get out of bed, then the process is not going to take as long \u2013 maybe a few days to a week.<\/p>

Comfort care is essential throughout the process.\u00a0 There is\u00a0no pain<\/strong>\u00a0from the process, but the mouth and lips do get dry. This problem can be treated with special swabs on the lips, inner cheeks and gums. Swabbing can be done with a bit of water provided there is not enough water to swallow;\u00a0a few medications are available too.\u00a0<\/p>

If the patient has pain, as is often the case, or develops pain, palliative care can be continued or started provided the treatment doesn\u2019t include giving the patient food or water, whether by swallowing, feeding tubes, or intravenous infusion.<\/p>

Is medical care necessary? No, but advisable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

If the patient\u2019s doctor will support VSED, then by all means try to keep the doctor involved.<\/p>

If the doctor isn\u2019t involved, it is advisable to have some professional help with the care.\u00a0 The easiest way to get help is to obtain it from hospice.\u00a0\u00a0Make sure that hospice will support a patient on VSED. More information is in the section on Hospice.<\/em>\u00a0 Also there are nurses who have training or experience with VSED, and likewise there are doulas (sometimes called death doulas) who know how to perform the necessary comfort care.<\/p>

You may be thinking about the legal problem of assisting someone to commit suicide. I.e., those attending the patient must continue to withhold food and water after capacity is lost.\u00a0 Surprisingly, this is not a problem. Legal research has not found a case where a family or a caregiver was formally accused of a crime for assisting with VSED.\u00a0 The reason seems to be that the patient initiates the process with her\/is own effort, and continues it for days without help.\u00a0 Indeed, VSED is chosen by people with strong wills \u2013 no help needed.\u00a0 Others may avoid it because they fear that they don\u2019t have the will power to see it through to the end.<\/p>

Can one write an advance directive that says to the person\u2019s agent start VSED on me at a given point?\u00a0\u00a0 This is an interesting issue, discussed under the section on\u00a0Dementia<\/a>.<\/p>

In recent years, VSED has received a lot of attention.\u00a0 PBS\u2019s Diane Rehm\u2019s husband died from VSED.\u00a0 Phyllis Shacter\u2019s husband did also,\u00a0 and she has been an advocate ever since.\u00a0 The national organization, Compassion and Choices, promotes it.\u00a0 In 2021 Oxford University Press published a treatise entitled, not surprisingly,\u00a0Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking<\/em>.\u00a0 It is subtitled\u00a0A Compassionate, Widely Available Option for Hastening Death,\u00a0<\/em>and is edited by distinguished leaders in the fields of medicine, philosophy and law.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOLUNTARILY STOPPING EATING AND DRINKING (VSED) \u201cJust as we strive for dignity and purpose throughout our lives, well before the light fades [i.e., before the sun goes down], we can bring this same dignity and purpose to our deaths, as we each journey into our own good night\u201d Sunita Puri, M.D., That Good Night, p. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2180","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2180"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6688,"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2180\/revisions\/6688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finalexodus.org\/EndOfLife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}