ABOUT US

Our Purpose – "Control Your Own Destiny"

Compassion & Choices Arizona is a non-profit organization dedicated to making physician aid-in-dying a legally available option for terminally or hopelessly ill persons in Arizona. A majority of Arizonans favor such a law.

We believe that in a free society it is a fundamental right to choose the time and manner of one's own death.  The right to choose the course of one's own death is as fundamental as the right to choose the course of one's own life.

We also do educational work to inform our members and the general public regarding the choices available as one approaches end-of-life.  We do education on how to protect your rights in hospitals, nursing homes, and elsewhere.  We provide information on how to express your wishes through advance directives such as Living Wills and Health Care Powers of Attorney.

In addition to directly helping those who are terminally ill, we seek to assist others whose lives are touched by someone dying from a terminal illness. Inquiries from friends, family, and others concerned are welcomed.

"Let Me Die Like a Dog"

It is not uncommon that the last days or weeks of life are accompanied by severe pain, suffering, or disability that many people would rather not put up with were they given the choice.  We treat our beloved pets better than we treat dying humans because we do not allow our pets to suffer needlessly.

However, there is a fundamental and important difference between dying dogs and dying humans:  the dog is not a free agent of choice in the situation. Ironically, the law does not treat humans as free agents of choice in the situation either!  We humans do not currently have the option, if we wish, to hasten our deaths with the aid of a physician.  Physicians, after all, are the ones who possess the knowledge and ability to relieve suffering by hastening death in an effective, humane, and dignified manner if the patient requests it.

It's Simply a Matter of Freedom of Choice

We believe that the right to choose the course and manner of one's own death should rest only with the individual involved, not with the State, the Legislature, the Medical Association, or with any other person.

We believe that those who feel that death must come without physician assistance should be free to follow that creed, whether they be doctors or patients.  But they should not be free to force their views, their religious convictions, or their philosophies on all other members of a democratic society, nor should they be free to compel those whose values differ from theirs to die painful, protracted, and agonizing deaths.

Click here to read an open letter from a terminally ill person.

Please join us

If you support our goals, we invite you to join us and work with us.  We have local Chapters around the state that sponsor informational programs, provide Living Will and Power of Attorney forms, and where you can meet others of like mind, get your questions answered, or volunteer to help out.

Compassion & Choices - Arizona
P.O. Box 12126
Tucson, AZ 85732
(877) 535-3600 (toll free)
(520) 378-2603

Contact us:
info@choicesarizona.org
webmaster@choicesarizona.org

Compassion & Choices Arizona is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and is the statewide Chapter of the national organization Compassion & Choices, which was formed by the merger of Compassion in Dying and End of Life Choices (formerly Hemlock Society).

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