Every person in South Africa deserves to be supported throughout lifeβs final journey with compassionate care, dignity and the freedom to choose their own path.
For most people, high-quality palliative care provides comfort, pain relief, and support that allows them to live meaningfully until their natural death. However, some individuals with terminal or irremediable conditions can face suffering that cannot be adequately relieved, even with the best medical care. Currently, their choices are severely limited by the law.
DignitySA advocates for:
Universal access to quality palliative care
Respect for patients' choices about withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments
Legal recognition of advance directives (living wills)
The option of medically assisted dying for informed adults with terminal or irremediable conditions when their suffering cannot be alleviated by an acceptable treatment option
We work toward these goals by:
Building public understanding about end-of-life rights and choices
Drafting a bill to provide a sound legal basis for advance directives
Preparing a legal challenge to establish the right to a medically assisted death alongside other end-of-life choices
Advocating for legal reforms that respect individual autonomy while protecting vulnerable people
They deserve humane choices - We all do.
OUR GOALS FOR 2025
Table our Advance Directives Bill in Parliament, reviving our previously gazetted amendment to the National Health Act that would provide legal clarity and protection for patients' documented end-of-life wishes
Submit our assisted dying court application, leveraging the powerful evidence we've gathered from 15 South African case studies, 14 foreign experts and multiple South African medical professionals to challenge the constitutionality of criminalising assisted dying
Build strategic partnerships with the palliative care sector to demonstrate our commitment to comprehensive end-of-life care
Grow our membership through enhanced communications and community engagement efforts, creating a broader base of support for legislative reform
To achieve our goals for 2025/26, DignitySA requires R4,525,000 in funding, of which we have secured R750,000 and now seek an additional R3,775,000. These funds will support our constitutional case, advocacy efforts, key staff roles and communications activities.
Since 2011, DignitySA has advocated for the fundamental Freedom of choice in end-of-life options for all.
LATEST NEWS
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DignitySA is approaching the High Court in Pretoria in early 2024 as an applicant seeking to have assisted dying decriminalised and legalised in South Africa.
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Assisted dying is doctor-assisted suicide and doctor-administered euthanasia for patients suffering from a condition with no prospect of further beneficial treatment or palliative care, and whose suffering is intractable and unbearable.
DignitySA will seek the following relief:
To declare the exiting general common-law prohibition of assisted dying, which regards it as murder, unconstitutional and invalid (thus decriminalising assisted dying); and to require Parliament to write a law legalising and regulating assisted dying in a manner appropriate for South Africa
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In 2015 South African Medical Association (SAMA) Chairman, Dr Mzukisi Grootboom, (erroneously) said: βYou must remember, ethics takes precedence over the laws of the country. There are lots of countries that sent people to the gas chambers.β
Now listen to what SAMA Chairperson, Dr Angelique Coetzee, had to say on 1 May 2019.
An encouraging watch. Interview starts 2 minutes in.
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Carol de Swardt flies to Switzerland for medically assisted death.
Your stories
Do you have a story to share in support of our cause of your personal experience sufferering from a dread disease or as carer or family member.
