"Dignity House": Jack Kevorkian business cards, anyone?

Rita Marker's International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide newsletter of July 6, 2010 asks the reader to imagine the following scenario:

A psychiatrist has announced that he's setting up a clinic in a quiet suburb. That clinic will be called the "Dignity House." It's a place where people can go to kill themselves under the State's Death with Dignity law.

Bluntly stated, it is an assisted-suicide clinic.

The clinic will be "full service" where you can schedule the day of your death and -- for an extra fee -- arrange for pre-death amenities. These extras include catering for a special last meal. Fresh garden flowers are also available. If you want music, that can be arranged. There's even the option of a makeup specialist so you'll look better if you select the option of an "end-of-life camera" to videotape your death.

A person can also request that the clinic's psychiatrist-owner be present at the time of death -- for an extra fee, of course. And, yes, you can bring friends, family and your pets if you'd like them to be present at your death. Total cost for the "package deal" is $5,000.

Marker concedes that some readers may find this unbelievable, saying that's a natural reaction; but she insists it's true. She writes: "In late June, Portland Oregon psychiatrist, Stuart Weisberg, MD, announced the planned opening of his 'Dignity House.' All of the details described above are from his web site and news articles about his endeavor."

See Thaddeus Pope's post, "Weisberg's Death with Dignity House" (Medical Futility Blog, June 27, 2010).

In a move toward damage control for Oregon's image, the state medical board issued an emergency suspension of Weisberg's medical license, not because of problems with the concept, but because of prior drug prescribing irregularities. Weisberg has vowed to get that suspension lifted, and, indeed, the winds of history clearly seem to be pointing his way.

Jack Kevorkian business cards, anybody?

Related

Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One,Waugh's vicious little nightmare of a satire on the L.A. funeral industry, where Whispering Glades provides deluxe service to deceased stars and their families, and the Happier Hunting Ground does the same for dead pets. (Staffers at Whispering Glades refer to corpses, of course, as "Loved Ones."