The Nurse Coaching People Through Death by Starvation

November 18, 2014

(The Daily Beast) – Schwarz, who is 70, estimates that she’s guided more than 100 patients through similar life-ending fasts. Unlike the lethal drugs that recently ended Brittany Maynard’s life in Oregon, voluntary stopping of eating and drinking—VSED, as it’s often called in medical literature—is legal in every state, and strictly speaking, it doesn’t require physician assistance, medications, or legal clearance.