Euthanasia

ExpatLegalWills.com is dedicated to providing services related to advance directives, including Living Wills which allow you to specify your wishes regarding voluntary passive euthanasia.  Below are some questions and answers related to euthanasia.

What is euthanasia?

Euthanasia is the act of intentionally causing the death of a patient, normally to relieve the patient's pain, suffering, or loss of quality of life. To be considered euthanasia, the act must be performed by a third party. For example, giving a patient a lethal injection would be considered euthanasia.

What is assisted suicide?

Assisted suicide is the act of intentionally causing the death of a person, where the person themselves performs the last act which causes death to occur. For example, if a person swallows an overdose of drugs that have been provided by a doctor for the purpose of causing death, or if a patient pushes a switch to trigger a fatal injection after the doctor has inserted an intravenous needle into the patient's vein.

Is euthanasia legal?

The law is changing very rapidly with respect to euthanasia and assisted dying. Legislation on euthanasia in most countries distinguishes between passive euthanasia (withholding or withdrawing of life-preserving procedures including water and food) and active euthanasia (intentionally killing a person to relieve pain).

In Canada, passive euthanasia has been legal for quite some time, but active euthanasia was previously prohibited as a form of culpable homicide up until June 6th 2016 with a Supreme Court decision (Carter v Canada). It ruled that adults with grievous and irremediable medical conditions are entitled to physician-assisted suicide.

In the United States, while active euthanasia is illegal throughout the U.S., assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California (effective from June 2016), one county in New Mexico, and is de facto legal in Montana.

In the United Kingdom, euthanasia and assisted dying are both illegal. Section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961, as originally enacted, provided that it was an offence to "aid, abet, counsel or procure the suicide of another" and that a person who committed this offence was liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years. That section was amended by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Although it is an offence to assist a patient in committing suicide, many doctors still assist their patients with their wishes by withholding treatment and reducing pain. This, however, is only done when the doctors feel that death is a few days away and after consulting patients, relatives or other doctors.

Does the law require that people be forced to stay alive?

No. Many people think that euthanasia or assisted suicide is needed so that patients won't be forced to remain alive by being "hooked up to machines". But the law already permits patients or their families to withhold or withdraw unwanted medical treatment even if that increases the likelihood that the patient will die. Thus, no one needs to be "hooked up to machines" against their will.

Furthermore, insisting against a patient's wishes that "everything be done" to keep them alive is not required by law nor by medical ethics. There comes a time when continued attempts to cure are not compassionate, wise, or medically sound. That is the time when all efforts are normally directed to making the patient's remaining time as comfortable as possible, including alleviating pain, alleviating symptoms, and perhaps even leaving the hospital so that they may spend the rest of their days in a more comfortable home environment.

These wishes are normally outlined in a living will, as provided by the MyLivingWill™ service here at ExpatLegalWills.com.

Since suicide isn't against the law, why should it be illegal to help someone commit suicide?

Neither suicide nor attempted suicide is criminalized anywhere in the United States or in many other countries. This is not because of any "right" to suicide. When penalties against attempted suicide were removed, legal scholars made it clear that this was not done for the purpose of permitting suicide. Instead it was intended to prevent suicide. Penalties were removed so people could seek help in dealing with the problems they're facing without risk of being prosecuted if it were discovered that they had attempted suicide.

Why should I create a Living Will or Advance Directives?

Most people die in hospitals and often this is after receiving treatment administered in an effort to prolong a person's life.  Medical staff are duty bound to use everything within the powers of modern medicine to keep a patient alive as long as possible, and within those powers there are regulations to be followed.  Medical staff are obliged to preserve a patient's life without necessarily considering the financial or emotional concerns of the patient and loved ones.

A Living Will gives you some say in the way you will be treated before you die, in a situation where death is otherwise inevitable.  This can be used in two ways --- to put a swift end to intolerable suffering, or to endorse the use of experimental treatment to try and save your life if at all possible.

When will a Living Will be used?

The most common use of a Living Will is to express your desire for a voluntary passive euthanasia.  Simply put, this means that medical staff should not artificially preserve your life under specific circumstances which are determined by you.  In addition, your Living Will or "health care directive" can express your views on the healthcare that you wish to receive if you were ever in a permanent coma.

How do I create a Living Will?

The MyLivingWill™ service here at ExpatLegalWills.com will let you create and define a living will to handle the above circumstances in accordance with your wishes, in the case where you are unable to communicate your wishes yourself.

How It Works

When you create a Will or legal document at LegalWills, you can designate up to 20 different Keyholders®. Your chosen Keyholders® will be given the trust and power to unlock specific information within your account such as health care directives, funeral wishes, final messages, uploaded files, Power of Attorney, or Last Will and Testament.

You can also implement security mechanisms to prevent premature access to these documents. The entire process of creating your Will and other legal documents at LegalWills is seamless and iterative, meaning you can continue to make changes until you're happy with the final product.
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Frequently Asked Questions

There is no requirement to use the services of a lawyer or notary public to prepare your own estate planning documents, including your Last Will and Testament.

The law that defines the legality of a Will is written specifically for each Province, State and Country, but in summary the law requires that the Will is written on a piece of paper and signed in the presence of two witnesses who cannot be beneficiaries to the Will.

Lawyers can certainly help you to prepare your Will, but everybody has a legal right to write their own Will. If you create a document using our service, it must be printed, signed and witnessed according to our instructions, and then it becomes a legal Last Will and Testament.
Quite simply, because we do not provide you with legal advice.

We are giving you direct access to the same software that lawyers use to prepare their documents, but you are doing it yourself. However, if you need custom clauses written to cover an unusual situation, we cannot do that, and we recommend that you seek legal advice. For example, if you have a child with special needs, they would need a trust written for their inheritance. We don't do that.

In most cases, a document written using our service will be word-for-word identical to one prepared by a lawyer.

There are no other payments required to prepare your legal Will. You can have a legal Will in your hands for $49.95USD with nothing else to pay, ever.

What other options are there?
If you wish, you can have your Will reviewed by one of our lawyers for $69.00USD. Most people do not need this, and would not benefit from it, but if you have selected an option such as "None of the above. Let me describe in detail how to distribute my estate.", then you may want to consider this.

Your Will must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses. If you do not have access to a printer, we can print it for you and mail it out. The cost for this is $9.95USD, but again, most people do not need this option.

We also offer other services like MyLifeLocker™, a Financial Power of Attorney, and a Living Will. They are not required, but they may be useful to you depending on your situation.

What about document storage?
We do not store physical documents, but we allow you to maintain an account with us if you want to update your document in the future.

The Will service costs $49.95USD. With this payment, you are able to prepare your Will. It also gives you one year of unlimited updates to the document. You are able to print the document as often as you wish during that first year. You can download it as a PDF or Word file, but to make your document a legal Will, it must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses. The online version is there for your convenience only.

If you choose not to maintain an account with us after the first year, your initial payment is all you will ever pay. We do not keep credit card details on file and cannot automatically charge beyond this initial payment.

If you wish, you can choose to store your documents online for longer than a year, which will make it easier to make updates in the future to reflect any changes in your personal or financial situation (rather than returning to a lawyer each time). This is of course optional, but it does make the process of maintaining your document more convenient. $11.95USD will give you one additional year of updates, or you can purchase multiple years: 5 years at $29.95USD, 10 years at $39.95USD, 25 years at $79.95USD ($3.20USD per year).

Every time you make an update to your Will, it must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses again. If you choose not to maintain an account with us, you will always have your printed, signed document. If you don't need to make changes to that document, it will last you for the rest of your life, whether or not you have an account with us.

What happens if I don't maintain an account, and then in a few years I need to update it?
If your account has not been touched in years, and it is inactive, we reserve the right to remove the account. You will receive an email notification that your account might be removed. However, in practice, we have never actually removed any accounts in our over 24 years of operation.

So, in all likelihood, you will be able to simply login to your account and pay $11.95USD to reactivate it. This will give you one year of unlimited updates from the date of payment. (You will not have to pay for your inactive years.)

Yes, if you reside in Canada, the United States, England or Wales.

A Will covers the distribution of the assets that you own, often those that are located in your home country.

A Power of Attorney (also known as a Power of Attorney for Finances) and Living Will (also known as a Power of Attorney for Health Care), are very important documents that should be created and updated at the same time as your Will.

This website allows you to create a Will, Expatriate Will, Power of Attorney and Living Will.
Here are just a few differences:

  • We have designed our legal document creation services to be of the best quality available today.   We have evaluated many existing do-it-yourself kits and web-based services. We were shocked by the poor quality, limited instructions, and low value for money that many of these do-it-yourself kits provide consumers. 

  • Incredible value for money.   Our membership pricing model allows us to provide you with the most value for your money at prices that are unprecedented in the legal industry. We worked with lawyers to bring you this service, and we paid for their legal services so you don't have to. 

  • Plain language help and instructions.  In addition, all of our services provide you with complete instructions and answer your questions in everyday language, free of legal industry jargon.  We have developed our services based on the requirements of the public, not dictated by the legal profession.  Our wizards, help and information are also designed to be the best on the market and are kept up-to-date on an ongoing basis.  

  • Create your legal documents from the comfort of your own home.  No lawyer required.  Our unique approach allows you to make use of the ultimate convenience of the Internet to write your Expatriate Will and other documents at your own pace, online, and to make changes online at any time free of charge. 

  • Free unlimited updates.  Don't pay a lawyer every time you need to update your documents. We allow your documents to be kept securely online so that you can make free unlimited updates for as long as you are a member.

  • You can still have it reviewed by a lawyer. We have worked with lawyers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom to bring you these services and to ensure that they are of the highest quality. But if you wish, we can still arrange for your documents to be reviewed by one of our lawyers, who will check the documents for consistency and completeness.

  • The Keyholder® Advantage. You can take advantage of our unique messaging service which allows you to describe the exact location of your documents and to provide a detailed list of assets for your Executor. All for no extra charge. When you pass away, let us worry about communicating this information to the people you specify. There is simply no other company that provides such a complete and convenient service to their customers. For more information, read about The Keyholder® Advantage.

  • We employ a strong focus on protecting the privacy and security of your information.  We use industry standard encryption algorithms for storing all of your private information, and the design of our services ensures that the contents of your information are made available to the specific people designated by yourself, and only at the appropriate time. 

  • Keep informed and up to date.  If you wish, we can inform you by email about any changes in legislation which may have occurred in your jurisdiction that may require changes to your documents.  Or we can send you simple email reminders, no more than once a year, to remind you to consider updating your documents if any significant changes have occurred in your life.  

Other websites and do-it-yourself kits simply do not compare.

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