Living Wills to be assessed

The 15th international conference of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies is scheduled to take place on Thursday, September 30 through Sunday, October 3, in the Toshi Center Hotel, Tokyo.

The World Conference Japan has two major roles. One is to exchange views on encountering incidents with members of WFRtDS for a better movement in the world. The other is to analyze a large variety of living wills and to potentially construct living wills aiming the basic uniform rights of the terminally ill act among member societies in the world.

Here we will limit the living wills to the withholding or withdrawal of life-prolonging procedure to the qualified patients with terminal condition. To begin with, we will overview the living wills in the world to find out diversities of ­living wills. It is our hope to propose some preliminary or prototype of living wills for the members of WFRtDS.

Hotel accommodation is also available in this hotel. Please return the registration card and other related forms as indicated in the final Circular that will be sent to you in the middle of April. The deadline for registration is July 30, 2004.

Listed information is as follows:

1. Brief Information on Time Schedule, Program
   Formal Registration Form and other related Forms are to be provided in the final Circular that should be sent to each Member Society in the middle of April. First, please enjoy provisional program of 15th World Conference Tokyo 2004 .
   
   
2. We would like to make a request as follows: since one of the topics is the living wills around the world, we would like to get all living wills from each of our society or from the State. We would like to analyze the difference among living wills around the world. This is a good way to understand the cross cultural difference and to create better living wills. Therefore, please allow us to expect your great cooperation. Would you please send us your living will by mail to the following addressee?
   
   Mr. Michio Arakawa, Executive Director
   Japan Society for Dying with Dignity
   2-29-1-201, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku,
   Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
   or email