When My Time Comes: Conversations About Whether Those Who Are Dying Should Have the Right to Determine When Life Should End

Former NPR host Rehm talks with individuals in support of and opposed to the right to die movement in this moving and candid interview collection. Rehm lost her husband to Parkinson’s disease and writes eloquently of the agony he experienced in his final days. Her interview subjects include doctors, palliative caregivers, the terminally ill, and those whose loved ones have succumbed to terminal illnesses. She speaks to a hospice spiritual care director about how to discuss end-of-life care with one’s family. Dan Diaz, whose cancer-stricken wife, Brittany Maynard, gained media attention in 2014 when she moved from California to Oregon to take advantage of the state’s Death with Dignity Act, recounts the story of being by her side when she died. While most interview subjects are in favor of the right to die, Rehm interviews a doctor who suggests that patients seeking death might be in “spiritual or existential distress,” in which case counseling is in order, and speaks with a Roman Catholic priest about the Church’s official position against medical aid in dying. Rehm and her subjects offer practical information, nuanced perspectives, and poignant stories of peaceful final moments achieved through end-of-life care. Readers faced with similar decisions will cherish this thoughtful account. (Feb.)