Medical Futility Blog

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

Tuesday, June 16, 2026

When No One Speaks for the Patient: Ethical Decision-Making in Cases of Absent or Marginal Capacity in the Unrepresented

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Join me on Friday for a half-day symposium on decision making for unrepresented patients. Registration is free . Here is the agenda.   Welco...
Monday, June 15, 2026

Medical Futility Blog to Reach Six Million Pageviews

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At the current rate of 2000 pageviews per day, the Medical Futility Blog is on track to reach six million pageviews by the end of 2026. And...
Sunday, June 14, 2026

Clinical Ethics Agenda 2030 - VSED, MAID, Brain Death, Medical Futility

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This wooden statute of Saint Peter of Alcantara was carved by Pedro de Mena in the 1600s. It caught my attention, this weekend, in the Cleve...
Friday, June 12, 2026

Defense of Institutional Conscience Rights for Secular Hospitals: Philosophical Justifications & Practical Applications

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Jason Wasserman presented his work on institutional conscience rights, this weekend, at ICCEC. It is available here  and will be published w...

World Federation of Right to Die Societies Conference - Sessions

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Here are abstracts that were just accepted for presentation at the World Federation of Right to Die Societies ( WFRTDS ) International Confe...
Thursday, June 11, 2026

Medical Aid in Dying: Only for Patients with Disabilities

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Every year, millions of patients with disabilities decide that living with their disability is intolerable. So, they hasten their death. Sin...

Medical Aid in Dying - New MAID Medications in 2027

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For a decade, most of the tens of thousands of patients who received a prescription for medical aid in dying received a prescription for D-D...
Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Switzerland Option: Why Some Americans Are Leaving the U.S. for Peaceful Death

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Join the Hemlock Society of San Diego here on Sunday, June 14 at 1:00 PM (San Diego time) for The Switzerland Option: Why Some Americans Ar...
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Clinical Ethics at ICCEC

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I am in Cleveland for the rest of this week to participate in sessions on clinical ethics at the International Conference on Clinical Ethics...
Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Medical Aid in Dying: Evolution & Future of the California End of Life Option Act (video)

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On May 22, 2026, I was guest speaker for the Faye Girsh endowed lecture on Medical Aid in Dying at the UCSD School of Medicine: Medical Aid ...
Monday, June 8, 2026

Better Informed Consent Technology: New Tools to Protect Patient Autonomy

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Join me at ICCEC  on Thursday, June 11, 2026, at 2:00PM for  Better Informed Consent Technology: New Tools to Protect Patient Autonomy . My...
Sunday, June 7, 2026

Medical Aid in Dying in Colorado

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It's been a rewarding and enjoyable weekend discussing MAID, VSED, and related issues other at the Colorado End of Life Options  annual ...
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Psychiatric VSED (Iris Dekker)

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Like patients using MAID, patients using VSED typically have serious physical illnesses such as cancer and ALS. But just as an increasing nu...
Saturday, June 6, 2026

VSED Remains Key End-of-Life Option Even as MAID Spreads

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Patients with ALS in Massachusetts, like patients elsewhere, are disproportionately interested in controlling the timing and manner of their...
Friday, June 5, 2026

Robot Surrogates - for Unrepresented and Other Incapacitated Patients

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Join me at ICCEC next Friday, June 12, 2026, at 11:30AM in Room 3 for  Robot Surrogates: AI’s Growing Role in Both Guiding and Making Heal...

Clinical Ethics Unconference 2027

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Submit your abstract for the  2027 Clinical Ethics Unconference. It will be in Denver, Colorado, on Monday and Tuesday, March 8-9, 2027.  C...
Thursday, June 4, 2026

Brain Death - Texas Court Prohibits Hospital from Performing Tests

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I recently blogged about a New York court that issued an injunction prohibiting the hospital from conducting brain death testing. This is o...

Hospices, Medicare, and MAID - CMS Urged to Investigate

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Almost all 30,000 U.S. patients who received a MAID prescription have been on hospice. And hospices receive almost all of their income from ...
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Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Medical Aid in Dying in New Jersey - What Happened?

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The first of three-part newspaper series examines medical aid in dying in New Jersey. The subtitle captures the problem: "Assisted dea...

International Shared Decision Making Conference (ISDM 2026)

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Registration is open for the 2026 International Shared Decision Making Conference (ISDM 2026), taking place July 7–10, 2026 in Hanover, New...
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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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