Get involved

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Hawai‘i Death with Dignity Society

Aloha and welcome!

If you want to see a Hawai`i Death with Dignity bill passed in 2017, NOW is the time to become actively involved. Our bill is in the draft stage and we will let you know more about that in the coming days.

If you’re not yet signed up to receive our email messages, please consider doing that now. It’s easy. Just look to your right and follow the easy opt-in instructions at “JOIN OUR MAILING LIST.” You should receive an immediate “Thank you” email. It’s that easy.

Because of many years laying the ground work in Hawai`i and across the nation, we are now poised to pass a Death With Dignity bill in 2017. It won’t be easy and our effort will require everyone’s strong commitment. We, your Hawai`i based on-the-ground organization cannot do it without your active engagement.

If you can send us a donation of any amount, please consider that too. Either use the “Donate” button (upper right) or you can send a check by snail mail to our national partnering organization:

Death With Dignity National Center
520 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 1220
Portland, Oregon 97204

Mahalo for your interest and kokua. Should you have a question, please phone me after 8 am – Midnight 7 days a week. Regards – Scott Foster, Communications Director 808-590-5880 (on O`ahu).

P.S. View the latest (and earlier) Oregon State statistics HERE.

Scope: “Stanford study finds support in Hawaii for physician-assisted death”

Posted on June 9, 2016 by Hawai‘i Death with Dignity Society

The Stanford Medicine publication Scope has reported that more than 3 in 4 Hawaii resident support Death with Dignity.

“Among the 1,095 responses from California and 819 from Hawaii, the majority — both in California (72.5 percent) and Hawaii (76.5 percent) — were supportive of physician-assisted death.”

Read the article HERE

Honolulu Star Advertiser: “Death with dignity advocate seeks right to choose”

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Hawai‘i Death with Dignity Society

The Honolulu Star Advertiser today published a profile of Scott Foster, Co-Founder of the Hawaii Death with Dignity Society.

Scott Foster, Co-Founder, Hawaii Death With Dignity Society: “I’ve witnessed so many older people whose quality of life goes to nothing, especially in those last months.”

For Scott Foster, getting a law passed in Hawaii to allow terminally ill people to end their lives is a personal matter. The 73-year-old co-founder of the Hawaii Death With Dignity Society has been working to attain such a law for 30 years. “I’m aging and it’s a very real issue. … When I can no longer take care of myself, it becomes a quality-of-life issue,” Foster said, adding that with no relatives and few close friends, he wonders who would be able to care for him. “I want full control over my end of life as best I can.” Foster, the recently elected chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii’s Kupuna Caucus, ran on a platform of senior health care and end-of-life issues, including a proposed “death with dignity” law that would allow a doctor to write a prescription for a lethal drug.

Continue reading HERE.

Honolulu Star Advertiser: “End-of-life talks with family are key”

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Hawai‘i Death with Dignity Society

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In today’s issue of the Honolulu Star Advertiser, Pat Gee discusses the importance of conversations at the end of life.

Start talking to relatives about how they want to die before they become critically ill. That’s Jade Young’s strongly held take on the matter. As a hospice educator and chaplain who has witnessed many families, including her own, struggle with end-of-life decisions during a time of anguish, Young advises, “An advance health care directive is a must, must, must.” Young was among the panelists at an event titled “End-of-Life Options and Dying With Dignity: Next Steps,” which was moderated by Mary Steiner of Compassion & Choices Hawaii. About 60 people attended the monthly Open Table discussion Tuesday, hosted by The Interfaith Alliance Hawai‘i at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu.

Continue reading HERE.

Democratic Party of Hawaii Activating on Death with Dignity

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Hawai‘i Death with Dignity Society

Our Co-Founder Scott Foster Elected Chair of the Party’s Powerful Kupuna Caucus

Newly elected Vice-Chair, Helen Raeur and Chair, Scott Foster of the Democratic Party of Hawaii’s Kupuna Caucus.

Running on a platform of senior healthcare and end-of-life issues including Death With Dignity, the Hawaii Death With Dignity Society’s co-founder and Communications Director Scott Foster has been elected Chair of the powerful Democratic Party of Hawaii’s Kupuna Caucus. The organization represents many thousands of senior Democrats and their families across the state.

Foster said,

“When the original Hawaii Death With Dignity Society members first set out to educate the public in Hawaii about this once very controversial public policy issue, we might have never imagined that we would still be working on it over 25-years later!

But laying that early groundwork has finally paid off and we strongly believe that 2017 is the year Hawaii will join Oregon, Washington State, Montana, Vermont and California in having a Death With Dignity law in place.

We welcome all who have joined with us to see this happen and we salute and honor those who have come before.”

Learn about some of those amazing personalities HERE.

Democratic Party of Hawaii Adopts Death with Dignity Resolution

The Democratic Party of Hawaii (DPH) has added a new supportive resolution to the DPH Platform. Drafted and lobbied by Scott Foster, on April 23, 2016 the Oahu County Democratic Convention adopted the following Resolution OC2016-8, “On Death with Dignity. “

The resolution was passed and adopted during the DPH State Convention on May 28-29 at Honolulu’s Sheraton Hotel in Waikiki. Scott is an elected Delegate and worked very hard to see that the resolution in the Platform.

Resolution OC2016-8: “On Death with Dignity”

WHEREAS, Hawaii has long affirmed the rights of individuals to make informed decisions regarding their health care at the end of life; and

WHEREAS, The Democratic Party of Hawaii has, through duly-adopted prior platform planks, established a long history of support for and the endorsement of Death with Dignity for terminally ill patients at the end of life; now therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That Oahu County Democrats of the Democratic Party of Hawaii urge the Legislature to take all measures to affirm the right of dying patients to make informed decisions about their healthcare, ensure that Hawaii residents are provided with a full range of end of life options, including a decision to advance the time of death, and provide safeguards to ensure patients are in control if they choose Death with Dignity; and be it

ORDERED that copies of this resolution be transmitted to the Democratic members of the Hawai‘i State Legislature, the members of the Hawai‘i Congressional delegation, and the 2016 convention Resolutions Committee of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i.

Maker: Scott Foster
Second: Michael Deweert & Mary Guinger

Media Release: “Panel Discussion on Death with Dignity”

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Hawai‘i Death with Dignity Society

Panel Discussion on Death with Dignity Set for Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Scott Foster, Founder of the Hawaii Death With Dignity Society, to Participate

The public is invited to a panel discussion entitled “End-of-Life Options” and “Dying With Dignity: Next Steps” at 7 PM on Tuesday, May 17, 2016 at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, 2500 Pali Highway. The gathering is part of the “Open Table” series of events sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance Hawaii.

Scott Foster, the founder of and Communications Director for the Hawaii Death With Dignity Society is joined on the panel by Dr. Craig Nakatsuka of Kokua Mau, Hawaii’s Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, and Jade Young, a chaplain and hospice advocate.

The event is being moderated by Mary Steiner, campaign manager for the Hawaii Chapter of the mainland-based Compassion & Choices.

GP Solo: “Twenty Years of Living with the Oregon Death with Dignity Act”

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Hawai‘i Death with Dignity Society

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The current, July/August 2013, issue of GP Solo, a publication of the American Bar Association, features an excellent article by Eli Stutsman, JD, a practicing Oregon lawyer was the lead author of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. He co-founde Oregon Right to Die, now the Death with Dignity National Center, where he is a founding board member.

“Twenty years this summer ago I was involved in a small group that had been working quietly and un-noticed for several years. We first met in a public library, then in a church, and later we leased our own small office space. We would soon go public with a new idea. We believed that a competent, terminally ill adult, with a prognosis of six months or less to live, should be al-lowed to hasten a difficult death within narrow and well-defined circumstances, if he or she so desired.”

Continue reading the article HERE.