Euthanasia Resources: Data, Research, Groups and Support

In about 2000, Jack Block was 74. He was a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Doctors found a mass growing in the spinal cord of his neck. Surgery carried a 20% chance of leaving him paralysed from the neck down. Without surgery, paralysis was certain.

His daughter, Dr Susan Block, flew out to be with him. She was a palliative care doctor in Boston, a leader in teaching doctors how to talk about dying. She was also his healthcare proxy, the person chosen to decide for him if he could not.

The night before the operation, they talked about friends and family. Then she drove away. Halfway across the Bay Bridge, she realised: "Oh, my God, I don't know what he really wants." She turned the car around (Gawande, The New Yorker, 2010).

Back at his bedside, she asked him how much he was willing to go through, and what kind of life he could accept. His answer surprised her. If he could still eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV, he said, he was willing to stay alive and go through a lot of pain. She had never seen him watch a football game.

We will come back to Jack Block at the end of this page. His story shows something that no single website, helpline or law can give you. The most useful resource is often a good question, asked in time, of the right person.

This page is a map of the places where you can find those questions and the facts behind them. It covers:

• helplines and services for people facing serious illness;
• how to judge whether a source is trustworthy;
• official data from countries where assisted dying is legal;
• landmark research, court rulings and ethics essays;
• what religions officially teach;
• organisations for and against assisted dying, and neutral ones;
• books, films and free planning tools;
• support for families and carers.

Euthanasia101 does not take a side. We list groups on every side so that you can read their own words. We checked every fact and link on this page on 11 October 2026.

If you are in crisis right now, please use the helplines at the top of this page, or find your country's lines on our help page. The resources below are for people who are living with serious illness, or caring for someone who is.

Your own doctor or nurse. This is still the best first step. Ask: "Can I see the palliative care team?" Palliative care is medical care that focuses on comfort and quality of life. You do not have to be dying to get it, and you can have it alongside treatment. See our palliative care guide.

Find a palliative care team (US). GetPalliativeCare.org is run by the Center to Advance Palliative Care. It has a directory of palliative care providers by area (CAPC).

Free forms and plain-language guides (US). CaringInfo is a free service of the National Alliance for Care at Home, the group formerly known as NHPCO. It explains hospice, advance directives and caregiving. Its contact page now offers help by email, at [email protected] (CaringInfo).

End-of-life information line (US). Compassion & Choices runs an End-of-Life Consultation line at 800-247-7421. It gives information on end-of-life planning and the options in your state (Compassion & Choices). Remember that this group campaigns for medical aid in dying. That does not make its information wrong, but you should know its position.

Any country. Find A Helpline lists free, confidential helplines in more than 175 countries, by phone, text or chat. It is run as a public service by a company called ThroughLine (Find A Helpline). Befrienders Worldwide is a network of emotional support centres for people in loneliness, despair or suicidal distress. Its "find support" directory covers 193 countries and 44 languages (Befrienders Worldwide).

In a medical emergency, call your local emergency number.

Think of information like a map. A good map tells you who drew it, when, and from what survey. A bad map looks just as neat, but it may be old, or drawn by someone who wants you to go a certain way.

Use these six checks on any page, video or post about euthanasia:

1. Who wrote it? Look for a named author or organisation. Anonymous claims are weak.
2. What is their position? Many good sources are not neutral. A campaign group may still be accurate, but it chooses which facts to show.
3. When was it updated? Laws change every year. In 2026 alone, three US states began new laws, France adopted one, and UK MPs voted down a bill for England and Wales. A page from 2023 may be wrong today.
4. Does it link to the original? A good page links to the law, the official report or the study itself.
5. Is it one study or many? One small study is a clue, not a conclusion.
6. Does it admit limits? Honest sources say what the data cannot show.

On this site we use simple evidence labels:

• Evidence: strong. Large, well-designed studies (such as randomised trials) or many studies that agree.
• Evidence: mixed. Good studies disagree, or the data has big gaps.
• Evidence: early. Small or new studies. Worth knowing, but not settled.

A note on the internet. Online forums and social media groups can give real comfort. But forum posts are not checked by doctors, and quality varies widely. Always check medical claims with a professional.

The best data comes from governments that allow assisted dying. Most must report every case. Here are the main reports, with their latest numbers.

Oregon. The Oregon Health Authority has published 28 yearly reports, from 1998 to 2025 (OHA archive). In 2025, 92% of patients were in hospice care and 61% had cancer. The most common concerns were loss of autonomy (89%), being less able to enjoy activities (89%) and loss of dignity (65%). Note that pain is not at the top of the list (OHA, 2026).

Canada. Of the 16,499 people who received MAID in 2024, 95.6% had a death that was "reasonably foreseeable". The other 732 did not. The median age was 77.9, and 63.6% had cancer. Almost three in four (74.1%) had received palliative care. The most common source of suffering was loss of the ability to take part in meaningful activities (Health Canada, 2025).

Netherlands. In 2025, the RTE received 10,341 reports, 3.8% more than in 2024. About 85% involved common physical illnesses such as cancer. There were 499 cases involving dementia and 174 involving mainly psychiatric suffering. In seven cases, the committees found the doctor had not met the legal "due care" criteria (RTE, 2026).

Belgium. In 2025, 4,486 people died by euthanasia, 12.4% more than in 2024. About half (49.9%) had cancer, and 29.6% had several illnesses at once (RTBF, 2026).

What these reports cannot tell you. They are based on what doctors report. They cannot count cases that are never reported. They also say little about why a person felt the way they did, or what support they lacked. Critics and supporters read the same tables very differently. For trends over time, see our statistics page.

You do not need to read hundreds of papers. These studies changed how doctors and lawmakers think. Each one has limits, so we give an evidence label.

The SUPPORT study (JAMA, 1995). Researchers followed 9,105 seriously ill adults in five US teaching hospitals. Only 47% of doctors knew when their patients did not want CPR. Of patients who died, 38% spent at least ten days in intensive care. Half of conscious patients who died had moderate to severe pain at least half the time, their families said. Then a trained nurse tried to improve communication. It made no difference (SUPPORT, 1995). The lesson: good intentions and more paperwork were not enough. Evidence: strong (large trial).

End-of-life conversations (Wright and colleagues, JAMA, 2008). This study followed 332 patients with advanced cancer and their carers. Patients who talked with their doctor about end-of-life wishes were not more depressed. They had fewer ICU stays (4.1% against 12.4%) and joined hospice earlier. Aggressive care near death was linked to worse quality of life, and to a higher risk of major depression in grieving carers (Wright et al., 2008). Evidence: mixed (a strong link, but observational, so it cannot prove cause).

Early palliative care (Temel and colleagues, NEJM, 2010). 151 people with newly diagnosed advanced lung cancer were randomly given early palliative care plus normal cancer care, or normal care alone. The palliative care group had better quality of life, and fewer had depression symptoms (16% against 38%). They had less aggressive care at the end of life, yet lived longer on average (11.6 months against 8.9 months) (Temel et al., 2010). Evidence: strong for quality of life; the survival gain came from one trial and needs confirming.

Dignity therapy (Chochinov and colleagues, Lancet Oncology, 2011). Dignity therapy is a short talking therapy. Patients record what matters most in their life and what they want to pass on. In a trial with 441 patients in Canada, the US and Australia, it did not lower measured distress overall. But patients said it helped, improved their sense of dignity and changed how their family saw them (Chochinov et al., 2011). Evidence: mixed.

Attitudes and practices worldwide (Emanuel and colleagues, JAMA, 2016). This review covered polls, surveys and official data from 1947 to 2016. Where legal, euthanasia or assisted suicide made up 0.3% to 4.6% of deaths. More than 70% of cases involved cancer. Pain was mostly not the main reason. The authors found no evidence that vulnerable groups were affected more than others (Emanuel et al., 2016). Evidence: strong as a summary of data up to 2016, but rates have risen since.

The "vulnerable groups" debate. In 2007, Margaret Battin and colleagues studied Oregon and the Netherlands. They found no higher risk for older people, women, poor people, disabled people or minorities. The only group with a higher rate was people with AIDS (Battin et al., 2007). In 2011, palliative care doctors Ilora Finlay and Robert George replied. They argued that vulnerability is not only about income or race. It can come from emotional state, loss or personality, which cross all groups (Finlay & George, 2011). Read both papers together. Evidence: mixed.

Depression and requests (Ganzini and colleagues, BMJ, 2008). Of 58 Oregonians who asked about aid in dying, 15 met criteria for depression. Of the 18 who received a prescription, three were depressed. The authors concluded that most did not have depression, but that the law "may fail to protect some patients" whose choices are shaped by it (Ganzini et al., 2008). Evidence: early (small study), but often cited.

The "five stages" and their critics. In 1969, the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described five stages of dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Critics say the model was never well tested. She herself later said her patients often showed two or three stages at once, in no fixed order (overview). The Yale Bereavement Study (JAMA, 2007) tested the idea in 233 grieving people. Acceptance was the most common feeling from the start, and yearning was the strongest painful feeling. Disbelief was not the first main feeling, as the model predicts. Yet each feeling did peak in roughly the order the stages suggest (Maciejewski et al., 2007). Evidence: mixed. The stages are a vocabulary, not a timetable.

Many assisted dying laws began in a courtroom. Here are the key rulings, in order.

• Washington v. Glucksberg (US Supreme Court, 1997). All nine judges held that the US Constitution does not protect a right to assistance in suicide. This left the question to each state (overview).
• Colombia, ruling C-239 (1997). Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that a doctor who ends the life of a terminally ill patient, at that patient's clear request, should not be punished. In ruling C-233 (2021), the court extended this to people with serious, incurable illness who are not terminally ill (overview).
• Pretty v United Kingdom (European Court of Human Rights, 2002). Diane Pretty had motor neurone disease. The court found that no "right to die" can be derived from Article 2, the right to life. It accepted that the UK ban affected her private life, but found that justified to protect others (overview).
• Gonzales v. Oregon (US Supreme Court, 2006). By six votes to three, the court ruled that the US Attorney General could not use federal drug law to block Oregon's law (Cornell LII).
• Carter v Canada (Supreme Court of Canada, 2015). The court ruled unanimously that the total ban on assisted dying broke the Charter of Rights. It applied to competent adults with a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" causing enduring, intolerable suffering. The plaintiffs included Kay Carter and Gloria Taylor (overview).

What changed in 2026. Delaware's law took effect on 1 January (Death with Dignity). New York's took effect on 5 August (NY Department of Health) and Illinois's on 12 September (Capitol News Illinois). France formally adopted an "aid in dying" law in August (The Guardian). Jersey's law received Royal Assent in July, with the service planned to start in late 2027 (Government of Jersey). On 11 September, UK MPs rejected the assisted dying bill for England and Wales at its second reading, by 286 votes to 270 (Politics.co.uk). On 7 October, Canada's justice minister, Sean Fraser, said the government will keep people whose only condition is mental illness out of MAID indefinitely. The same planned bill would allow advance requests from people who still have capacity (Canadian Press via CP24).

For the full country-by-country picture, see our legal landscape guide.

A handful of short texts appear in almost every university course. You can read most of them in an afternoon.

James Rachels, "Active and Passive Euthanasia" (New England Journal of Medicine, 1975). Rachels used a pair of imagined cases to argue that killing and letting die are not, in themselves, morally different. If that is true, he said, the line doctors draw between stopping treatment and acting to end life is hard to defend (Rachels, 1975). Many ethicists still reject his conclusion.

Philippa Foot, "Euthanasia" (1977). Foot asked whether death can ever be a good for the person who dies, and who has the right to decide. The essay is reprinted in Medicine and Moral Philosophy (Princeton, 1982) (Foot).

The doctrine of double effect. This idea goes back to Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. It says an act can have two effects, one intended and one only foreseen. A doctor may give strong pain relief to ease suffering, even if a shorter life is a possible side effect. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that no research shows that carefully adjusted pain medicine is likely to shorten life. The mistaken fear that it does can lead doctors and families to undertreat pain (SEP).

Leon Kass, "Neither for Love nor Money: Why Doctors Must Not Kill" (The Public Interest, 1989). Kass argued that medicine has its own moral core, and that healing and killing cannot belong to the same profession (National Affairs).

Neil Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (2006). Written before he joined the US Supreme Court, the book argues that human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong. It still supports a patient's right to refuse treatment (Princeton University Press).

Dame Cicely Saunders. Saunders worked as a nurse, a medical social worker and a doctor. In 1967 she founded St Christopher's Hospice in London, widely seen as the first modern hospice. Her best-known words still guide palliative care:

"You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life." — Dame Cicely Saunders (King's College London)

For the arguments in depth, see ethics and philosophy and arguments for and against.

Many faiths publish official statements. Reading the original text helps you avoid second-hand summaries. Here are some key documents. Our religious views page covers each tradition in depth.

Catholic Church. Samaritanus bonus, a 2020 letter from the Vatican's doctrinal office, calls euthanasia "an intrinsically evil act, in every situation or circumstance." It also calls palliative care "an authentic expression of the human and Christian activity of providing care" (Vatican, 2020).

Islam. The 1981 Islamic Code of Medical Ethics states that a "doctor shall not take a positive measure to terminate the patient's life." It also says the aim is "to preserve life not to prolong the dying process." Bodies including the Islamic Fiqh Academy (2015) have ruled that futile treatment may be withheld. Professor Mohammed Ghaly explains these rulings in a 2022 paper published by the World Health Organization's regional journal (Ghaly, 2022).

Judaism. Jewish law is often set out in responsa, written answers by rabbis to specific questions. Orthodox authorities forbid active euthanasia. But Reform Judaism's Central Conference of American Rabbis, in Responsum 5783.1, concluded with sadness that for "some few individuals" medical assistance in dying must remain an option (CCAR).

Buddhism. There is no single official Buddhist statement. As scholar Damien Keown writes, Buddhism has "no central authority competent to pronounce on matters of doctrine or ethics." But almost all schools share two core values: compassion and respect for life. Keown argues that the first moral precept, not to take life, seems to rule out both euthanasia and assisted suicide. He also notes that compassion pulls many Buddhists the other way, so the debate continues (Keown, Lancet, 2005).

Hinduism. Hindu views are also diverse. Writing in The Lancet, Shirley Firth explains that suicide is frowned on, but some traditions accept a willed death for spiritually advanced people. Many Hindus, following teachers such as Gandhi, also stress ahimsa, the duty not to harm (Firth, Lancet, 2005).

These groups campaign to legalise or widen assisted dying. Their websites explain their case in their own words.

Compassion & Choices (US). The largest US group campaigning on end-of-life choices. It traces its roots to the Hemlock Society, founded by Derek Humphry and others in 1980. The Hemlock Society later became End-of-Life Choices, which merged with Compassion in Dying in 2005 to form Compassion & Choices (Compassion & Choices). It is based in Colorado and says it has about 450,000 supporters (About us).

Death with Dignity National Center (US). Based in Portland, Oregon. It formed after Oregon's law passed and works on laws modelled on it. It has an educational charity and a separate political fund (Death with Dignity).

Dignity in Dying (UK). It campaigns for the option of assisted dying for "terminally ill, mentally competent adults," not for a wider law (Dignity in Dying).

Dignitas (Switzerland). A Swiss assisted-dying organisation founded in 1998 by the human rights lawyer Ludwig Minelli. It grew to more than 10,000 members. Minelli died in November 2025, days before his 93rd birthday. Dignitas has said it will continue his work (Le News). It has long been the subject of legal and ethical debate (overview).

Exit International. A right-to-die group founded in Australia in 1997 by Dr Philip Nitschke. It campaigns for wider access than any current law allows. Medical and suicide-prevention bodies have strongly criticised its work. It faced police investigations in Switzerland and the Netherlands in 2024 (overview).

Final Exit Network (US). A group founded in 2004 by former Hemlock Society members. It has faced criminal prosecution. In 2015 a Minnesota jury convicted the group of assisting a suicide, and it was fined $30,000 (overview).

World Federation of Right to Die Societies. It links more than 60 member groups in over 30 countries. It meets every two years; its next conference is in Tokyo in November 2026 (WFRtDS).

These groups campaign against assisted dying or against widening current laws. Many also campaign for better palliative and disability care.

Not Dead Yet (US). A disability rights group founded in 1996 by Diane Coleman. It argues that assisted suicide is "not about free choice," but about the idea "that it is better to be dead than disabled" (Not Dead Yet). It is an influential voice for many disabled people.

UN human rights experts. In January 2021, as Canada debated widening MAID, three UN human rights experts issued a joint warning. They included the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities. They wrote: "Disability should never be a ground or justification to end someone's life directly or indirectly" (UN experts, via ECLJ). Their concern draws on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (Canada). Led by Alex Schadenberg, it campaigns to keep legal bans in place and to improve hospice and palliative care. It follows Canada's MAID programme closely (EPC).

Care Not Killing (UK). An alliance of disability and human rights groups, healthcare providers and faith groups. Its aims are more and better palliative care, and keeping the current laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide (Care Not Killing).

Patients Rights Action Fund (US). The old website of the Patients Rights Council now leads here. This New York group campaigns to abolish assisted suicide laws, which it calls discriminatory and impossible to regulate safely (PRAF).

Life Legal Defense Foundation (US). A nonprofit law firm founded in 1989. It says it protects "vulnerable human life from conception to natural death," and it has taken cases for patients denied life-sustaining care (Life Legal).

Religious bodies. The Catholic Church, Orthodox churches, most evangelical Protestant groups, mainstream Islamic organisations and Orthodox Jewish groups officially oppose euthanasia.

These groups explain the debate without campaigning for one answer.

The Hastings Center (US). An independent bioethics research institute in New York. It publishes the Hastings Center Report and short, nonpartisan briefings, including one on medical aid in dying (Hastings Center).

Nuffield Council on Bioethics (UK). It does not take a position on assisted dying. In March 2025 it published the results of a citizens' jury and survey on public views in England. It sent briefings to Parliament before votes in 2025 and September 2026 (Nuffield Council).

World Health Organization. The WHO's palliative care fact sheet does not take a position on euthanasia. It says 56.8 million people need palliative care each year, but only about 14% receive it (WHO). That gap matters in every debate about choice.

Institute of Medicine, Dying in America (2014). A major US report on improving care near the end of life. It calls for better communication, training, payment and public engagement. You can read it free online (National Academies).

National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH funds research on end-of-life care and decisions. Its Department of Bioethics offers learning materials.

University centres. The Kennedy Institute of Ethics (Georgetown), the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics all publish on end-of-life ethics. Oxford's Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics became the Uehiro Oxford Institute in 2024 (Uehiro Oxford Institute).

Journals. Journal of Medical Ethics, Bioethics, American Journal of Bioethics, Hastings Center Report, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Palliative Medicine and Journal of Palliative Care.

Databases. PubMed for medical research. PhilPapers for philosophy. Google Scholar for broad searches. JSTOR for academic journals. Many university courses in bioethics and end-of-life care are free online through Coursera, edX and the Open University's OpenLearn.

Books let you spend real time with one point of view. Try to read at least one from each side.

Ethics and policy:

• Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die, Margaret Battin (supports legal choice).
• Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy, John Keown (opposes legalisation).
• Practical Ethics, Peter Singer (a utilitarian case for euthanasia).
• The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Neil Gorsuch (2006, against).
• Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice, edited by Timothy Quill and Margaret Battin.
• From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic, the Hastings Center bioethics briefing book, edited by Mary Crowley (2008).

Medicine and dying:

• Being Mortal, Atul Gawande (2014). Gawande is a surgeon. He argues that medicine should focus on well-being, not only survival (overview).
• How We Die, Sherwin Nuland (1994). It won the US National Book Award for nonfiction (overview).
• On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1969). Read it with its critics.
• Dying in America, Institute of Medicine (2014).

Personal and historical:

• Jean's Way, Derek Humphry (1978). The Hemlock Society founder on his first wife's assisted death.
• The Hour of Our Death, Philippe Ariès. A history of how Western societies have faced death.

Religious perspectives: official statements and scholarly works from each tradition, listed in the section above.

Films can bring the debate to life. They also choose what to show. Watching them in pairs helps.

A pair to watch together:

• "Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die" (BBC Two, 2011). The author, who had Alzheimer's disease, explores assisted dying, including a visit to Dignitas. It won a BAFTA and an International Emmy. It also drew more than 1,200 complaints, and Care Not Killing called it propaganda (overview).
• "Better Off Dead?" (BBC One, 2024). The disabled actor and activist Liz Carr argues against changing the law. She asked to make it in 2011, after the Pratchett film. It looks closely at Canada's MAID law (overview).

On assisted dying:

• "How to Die in Oregon" (2011). Peter Richardson's film follows Oregonians who used the Death with Dignity Act. It won the Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at Sundance and aired on HBO (overview).
• "The Suicide Tourist" (also called "Right to Die?"). John Zaritsky's film follows Craig Ewert, a retired university professor with ALS (motor neurone disease), to Dignitas. It was first shown in 2007, aired on Sky in 2008 and on PBS Frontline in 2010. It is controversial because it shows his death (overview).
• "The Sea Inside" (Mar Adentro, 2004). A Spanish drama based on Ramón Sampedro, a man with quadriplegia who campaigned for 28 years for the right to die. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (overview).

On care at the end of life:

• "Extremis" (Netflix, 2016). ICU doctor Jessica Zitter helps families make hard choices in an Oakland hospital. It was nominated for an Oscar. It is about stopping treatment, not euthanasia (overview).
• "End Game" (Netflix, 2018). Palliative care doctors at UCSF and the Zen Caregiving Project help patients live as well as possible. It was nominated for an Oscar (overview).
• "Being Mortal" (PBS Frontline, 2015). Atul Gawande explores why doctors struggle to talk about dying (FRONTLINE).

The SUPPORT study showed that forms alone do not change care. Conversations do. These free tools help you start them.

The Conversation Project. Founded in 2010 by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ellen Goodman, after she cared for her mother with Alzheimer's disease. It is now run by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Its free starter guide has been downloaded more than 795,000 times, in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese (The Conversation Project). Goodman explains why she began: "I realized only after her death how much easier it would have all been if I heard her voice in my ear."

PREPARE for Your Care. An easy-to-read website that guides you through planning step by step. In a trial with 414 older US veterans, those who used PREPARE plus a simple form were more likely to record their wishes than those who used the form alone (35% against 25%) (Sudore et al., 2017). Evidence: strong for recording wishes, though from one trial in one veterans' hospital; it did not measure care at the end of life.

State advance directive forms (US). CaringInfo offers free forms for each state (CaringInfo).

Good questions to ask. Susan Block's own checklist covers five things (The New Yorker):

1. What do you understand about your illness and where it is going?
2. What are your fears and worries about the future?
3. Who should make decisions if you cannot?
4. How do you want to spend your time if it becomes short?
5. What trade-offs are you willing, or not willing, to make?

Our patient rights guide explains advance directives, DNR orders and healthcare proxies step by step.

Caring for someone who is seriously ill is hard work, and it can feel lonely. You do not have to do it alone.

Death Cafes. People meet over tea and cake to talk openly about death. There is no agenda. It is a discussion group, not grief counselling. The idea was started in 2011 by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid; the first UK Death Cafe was held in Hackney, London. Nearly 25,000 have now been held in 100 countries (Death Cafe).

Carer networks. The Family Caregiver Alliance offers online support. AARP has caregiver resources. Disease groups such as the Alzheimer's Association and the ALS Association run carer communities.

Grief support. GriefShare and similar programmes help families after a death. Many hospices offer free bereavement support to families for months afterwards. See our grief resources.

Online forums. Reddit's r/hospice and disease-specific forums often discuss end-of-life care. These are peer spaces, not clinical ones. They can offer real comfort, but they do not replace medical or mental health advice.

A gentle reminder for carers. Carers have needs too. Ask the palliative care team about respite care, which gives you a short break while someone else provides care.

After the operation, Jack Block developed bleeding in his spinal cord. The surgeons needed to operate again to save his life. But he was already nearly paralysed, and might stay that way for months or for good. They asked Susan Block what to do. She had three minutes.

"I realized, he had already made the decision," she said. She asked the surgeons one question: if he survived, could he still eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV? Yes, they said. She told them to go ahead (The New Yorker).

Without that talk, she said, her instinct would have been to let him go. Then she might always have asked herself, "Did I let him go too soon?" Instead, she said, "there was no decision for me to make." He had decided.

The year that followed was hard. He went through what she called "very horrible rehab". Over the next two years, he learned to walk short distances again. He needed help to bathe and dress. But his mind was clear, and he had partial use of his hands. He wrote two books and more than a dozen scientific papers. He lived for ten more years.

His answer was not the one his daughter expected. It might not be yours. Someone else might say they could not accept that life. Atul Gawande's own father, a doctor facing a similar tumour in his spinal cord, heard Jack Block's story. He told his family that football and ice cream would not be enough for him. What he loved, his son said, "was interaction with people" (FRONTLINE). That is the point. Every report, study, film and helpline on this page exists to help people find and share their own answer.

Block put it simply: "A family meeting is a procedure, and it requires no less skill than performing an operation."

Questions to sit with:

• What is your "chocolate ice cream"? What would make life still worth living for you?
• Does the person you would want to speak for you know your answer?
• Which source on this page comes from a view you disagree with? What might you learn from reading it?

If you are reading this page because you feel you cannot go on, please talk to someone today. You can find a helpline here.