Medical Futility Blog

Professor Thaddeus Mason Pope on end-of-life law and policy

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Adriana Smith - One Year Later

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The case of Atlanta's Adriana Smith received worldwide media attention. Although determined dead, her body was sustained with technologi...
Wednesday, February 11, 2026

MAID in Vermont - Latest Reported Data

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Use of MAID in Vermont ("Patient Choice") has increased substantially, according to a DOH report published a few days ago.  190 i...
Tuesday, February 10, 2026

What Does It Mean to Die a Bad Death? Provider Perspectives in the ICU

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The delivery of patient-centered end-of-life care is often impeded by systemic barriers, such as fragmented communication, prognostic uncert...
Monday, February 9, 2026

Brain Death Backlash: Unregenerately Variable and Illegal Standards for Determination of Death by Neurological Criteria

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I am getting ready for my talk for the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics 2025-26 lecture series. My talk is "Brain Death Back...
Saturday, February 7, 2026

Unilaterally Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment Is Consistent with Human Rights Law - Rules ECHR

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The European Court of Human Rights has just ruled that clinicians may unilaterally withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment over patie...

New York Enacts MAID Law

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New York has become  the 14th U.S. jurisdiction to authorize medical aid in dying. I had expected the statute to be the worst MAID law in th...
Friday, February 6, 2026

Unwanted Medical Treatment Harms Patients: Taxonomy of Healthcare Consent Infractions

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I posted here a prepublication draft of my article forthcoming in the University of Illinois Chicago Law Review : "Unwanted Medical Tr...
Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Incentives to Stop Life-Sustaining Treatment - South Korea

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South Korea is considering crossing a line that has been rather sharp and bright in the United States. It is considering incentives to wit...
Tuesday, February 3, 2026

New VSED Advance Directive: Improved Documentation to Avoid Late-Stage Dementia

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Our recent article reviewing VSED advance directives is now available open access here from the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. Peopl...

When Someone You Love Chooses to VSED

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Bob Uslander is one of the most experienced U.S. clinicians when it comes to VSED and MAID. His San Diego based company, Empowered Endings ,...
Monday, February 2, 2026

Professor Pope's Bioethics Contributions (January 2026)

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Here are my academic outputs from January 2026.   PUBLICATIONS THE RIGHT TO DIE: THE LAW OF END-OF-LIFE DECISIONMAKING (Wolters Kluwer L...
Sunday, February 1, 2026

Unrepresented Patients in Massachusetts

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Perhaps no state has done more to document the impact of unrepresented patents than Massachusetts. Following a series of reports and media c...
Saturday, January 31, 2026

Robot Surrogates: AI’s Growing Role in Both Guiding and Making Healthcare Decisions for Unrepresented and Other Incapacitated Patients

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Join me at the International Conference on Clinical Ethics and Consultation ( ICCEC ) from June 10-13, 2026 for Robot Surrogates: AI’s Growi...
Friday, January 30, 2026

The Cheryl Hauser Effect: Alzheimer's & VSED Through a Family's Eyes

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In this  video interview , Lori La Bey talks with Wendy Longacre Brown and Sarah Longacre who worked alongside their mother, Cheryl Hauser, ...
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Thursday, January 29, 2026

Death Determination Errors Addressed in New Legislation

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The goal in death determination is 100% accuracy: zero false positives. So, it is regrettable that we need legislation to address roles and ...

Choosing When to Die: A Conversation on Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED)

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In this episode  of Comforting Closure - Conversations with a Death Doula, host Traci Arieli sits down with Crystal Flores, an end-of-life...
Wednesday, January 28, 2026

World Congress of Bioethics

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The 18th World Congress of Bioethics is July 8-10, 2026 in South Africa. Register Here.  
Tuesday, January 27, 2026

When to Call 911 for Patients with DNR Orders

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76-year-old Rashida Sultana died while choking on food while a hospital inpatient. Nobody called 911.  A British coroner found there was con...

Practical Considerations for Dementia-Specific Advance Directives: Responding to Requests to Assist Patients with Stopping Eating and Drinking

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I am looking forward to my plenary session at the American Geriatrics Society Annual Scientific Meeting:  Practical Considerations for Deme...
Monday, January 26, 2026

Debunking & Reengineering Death (Christos Lazaridis)

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In this 30-minute video , Christos Lazaridis shows why death is not a discovered empirical and biological fact. Instead, it is a social cons...
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About Me

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Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD, HEC-C
Mitchell Hamline Health Law Institute; Australian Center for Health Law Research at QUT; Albany Medical College, Minnesota, United States
Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD, HEC-C, is Professor of Law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is also an Adjunct Professor with the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology; Adjunct Associate Professor with the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College; and Visiting Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at St. Georges University. <> Professor Pope is an internationally recognized expert in bioethics and medical ethics. He has over 250 publications in: leading medical journals, law reviews, bar journals, nursing journals, bioethics journals, and book chapters. He also coauthors the definitive 1500-page treatise The Right to Die: The Law of End-of-Life Decisionmaking.
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