Blog
Articles, reflections and campaign updates
Lynne’s Story
DignitySA Director Lynne Grubb traces a life lived at the edges of other people’s dying, two parents, a young husband, and now her partner Dieter Harck, and why she believes the choice at the end must belong to the person living it.
Leigh’s Story
This Women’s Month, Operations Manager Leigh Meinert opens our series of stories from the women behind DignitySA, describing how two profound losses, decades apart, shaped her passion for end-of-life care and the right to dignity.
Exiting The Story of Our Lives on Our Own Terms
Professor Leon van Vuuren reflects on three people with Motor Neurone Disease, and what their very different deaths taught him about dignity, choice and the case for medical assistance in dying.
MAiD in SA: Our Healthcare System & Safeguards
It is a myth that South Africa’s healthcare system cannot handle MAiD. We show why a cautious, phased approach with proven safeguards can protect the vulnerable while ending needless suffering.
From Soweto to Sandton
Jabu Mabaso lost his mother to cancer, and wishes his family had spoken openly about her dying. His story is a call for honest conversations, dignity and choice at the end of life for all South Africans.
MAiD in SA: What Do Religious Leaders Say?
There is no single “religious” position on medical assistance in dying, only a rich, unresolved conversation. We look at why our Constitution, not theology, is the arbiter of public policy.
Still Climbing
Cherry Armstrong has spent a lifetime relieving suffering, from palliative care and climbing Kilimanjaro for hospice to championing the right to die with dignity.
MAiD in SA: What Do Doctors Say?
Most doctors are wary about speaking out in support of MAiD, but the data tells an encouraging story. We look at what South African doctors actually say.
MAiD in SA: DignitySA's Constitutional Challenge
On 9 April 2026, DignitySA filed its Notice of Motion, Founding Affidavit and supporting documentation in the North Gauteng High Court. At almost 1,000 pages in total, the case makes a clear, strong argument for a safeguarded MAiD framework in South Africa.
MAiD in SA: Our Courts, Murder and MAiD
Our common law treats MAiD as murder, yet our courts have long resisted that equation. We trace the cases, the shelved SALC report, and the groundwork for our constitutional challenge.
When Memory Fades but the Soul Remains
Dementia, dignity, and a deeply personal story of love, loss and caregiving from Reverend Mogomotsi Diutlwileng.
MAiD in SA: The Power of Our Constitution
In South Africa, our Constitution provides a way to resolve ethical differences. We examine the four constitutional rights that support a right to MAiD.
MAiD in SA: The Ethical Debates
Is medical assistance in dying ever an ethical option? We explore the three main arguments for and against MAiD, and why the debate will never reach a conclusion.
MAiD in SA: Definitions and Our Options
MAiD in SA is a new series that explores medical assistance in dying in South Africa’s context. Let’s begin by talking about terminology…
The Courage to Come Out
On the deadly silence around mortality, the gift of witnessing, and why the promise of our Constitution must extend to the end of life.
Healing by Helping
A daughter, a mother and a question we so rarely ask the dying: “What do you need? What do you want? How can I honour you?”
My Husband's Living Will Protected His Peace
Ann Buttle shares how her husband Rod’s living will gave her the courage and the authority to honour his wishes at the end.
First Do No Harm
Dr Peter Roos, after 53 years in medicine, writes an open letter on what the Hippocratic Oath demands of us when suffering cannot be relieved.
Even The Strongest Soldiers Grow Weak
Patsy Schonegevel’s story of her son Craig, who, after a lifetime of pain, asked his parents to help him die with the dignity he could not find at home.
63 Years of Silence — My Brother’s Story
A sister’s account of her brother Christopher, born with severe cerebral palsy in 1963, and the question his life imposed: at what point does keeping someone alive cease to be care?
Whispering Death To Avoid The Truth
On the African ritual of whispering bad news, the silence we inherit, and what it costs us when death finally arrives uninvited.
Expanding Compassion To Include Choice
Dr Kelley Joubert writes after losing her mother to cancer: a clinician’s argument that compassionate care must expand to include the right to choose.
Ian von Memerty
A note on the difference between lawful medically assisted dying and suicide, and on the court action DignitySA is bringing to change that distinction in law.
A Life of Principle, Compassion and Courage
Honouring Emeritus Professor Johannes Phillipus van Niekerk, a transformative leader in South African medical education and a tireless advocate for end-of-life choice.
From Rage to Resolve — The Maggi Savage Story
How one family’s devastating experience with a broken end-of-life system became a catalyst for meaningful change.
Merciless Life or the One Remedy to All Pain — a Dignified Death?
A brother’s account of his sister Lynette’s last days suffocating from emphysema, and the indignity of being denied a dignified death.
A Mother's Wish
A nurse and a mother on watching her daughter die in agony, and her own wish, now living with stage 4 cancer, for a good death.
Epilogue of The Polite Tyranny of the Living: The Gospel of Suffering
A heretical look at the strange arithmetic of pain: the idea that suffering refines us, and what it would mean to refuse its worship.
The Polite Tyranny of the Living
An acid, funny essay on the body’s betrayal, the priesthood of prolongation, and why the freedom to choose one’s ending is treated as indecent.
Palliative Care Centres Take A Position On Assisted Dying
The APCC has released a position statement on end-of-life decisions: supportive of palliative care, cautious on MAiD, and committed to continued engagement.
The Fear of Becoming Irrelevant
On the fear of fading while still breathing, and on dignity as a final act of authorship rather than the world’s memory of us.
Boo! or Taboo?
A wry field guide to Death Cafés, death doulas, and the death-positive movement, and what cake-with-mortality teaches us about living well.
Poll: Select a DignitySA T-Shirt
Help us choose the design that best represents DignitySA’s values of compassion, choice, and dignity.
Legal Mandates To Your Health Proxies: FAQs
Ten plain-English answers about Section 7 health-care mandates: who can decide for you, what they can refuse, and what happens if you’ve named no one.
How Much Standing Under Current SA Law Do Advance Directives Have?
Leigh Meinert on Cape Talk: how much weight do advance directives carry under South African law today?
The Right to Die: Should South Africa Legalise Assisted Dying?
DignitySA on Metro FM discussing the case for legalising medically assisted dying in South Africa.
Push for SA Laws to be Changed to Allow Dignified Assisted Death
Newzroom Afrika sits down with Sean O’Connor and DignitySA’s Joseph Raimondo on the push to give terminally ill adults the option of a dignified death.
A Cancer Patient Chose Assisted Death. That Wasn’t the Last Hard Choice.
Tatiana Andia knew Colombia would permit her a medically assisted death, but the existence on paper of a right to control one’s death was only a first step.
Opinion | To Be Human Is to Choose: Why SA Needs the Courage to Legalise Assisted Dying
Living with Parkinson’s for fifteen years, Dawid van der Merwe makes the case for an inclusive end-of-life law: palliative care and assisted dying, both.
Bad deaths scar families forever
For patients like Maddie Cowey, diagnosed with incurable cancer at 18, the stakes of the assisted-dying debate couldn’t be higher.
Sapiens are not just nerve endings
An open-letter reply to eight palliative care practitioners: why dignity is self-defined, why “do no harm” cuts both ways, and why palliative care and MAiD must work together.
Beyond the False Choice
Why SA needs both palliative care and assisted dying, Leigh Meinert’s Daily Maverick opinion piece responding to Yvette Andrews’s story at the Tutu Foundation.
Debate rages around the right to choose to die
Assisted dying remains one of the medical sector’s most explosive and enduring ethical dilemmas.
Go gently into the night
South African doctors share their personal experiences in Canada of assisted dying, now legal in about a dozen countries.
A panel discussion at King’s College, London, about legalising assisted dying in the UK
A King’s College London panel discussion exploring polling, principle and practice in the debate on assisted dying.
Brian O’Connell, ex UWC vice chancellor and DignitySA patron, has died age 77
Remembering Brian O’Connell, former UWC vice chancellor and DignitySA patron, after his death at age 77.
The unexpected comfort of taking a seat at a Death Cafe
With a cuppa in hand, or over a meal, these small gatherings offer supportive spaces to discuss death, grief and end-of-life planning.
Without this mercy, my Lize would have suffered much more
A Rapport feature reflecting on mercy, suffering and one family’s experience at the end of life.
I wish Dad did not die like this
A Rapport feature about a family’s painful experience and the wish for more compassionate end-of-life options.
Mercy death: My mother wanted me to help her die
A Rapport feature on mercy, choice and a mother’s request for help at the end of life.
History and activities of Dignity South Africa
An overview of DignitySA’s history, activities and work to support end-of-life choice in South Africa.
Life File: will and estate planning
Why a will and estate plan should be foundational parts of your Life File, and how to begin preparing them.
The morality of prolonging life vs the right to a dignified life
A reflection on medical assistance in prolonging hopeless biological life and the right to medical assistance in dying with dignity.
Is bystanddood eties en moreel?
Op en Wakker praat met Willem Landman van DignitySA oor bystanddood.
Willem Landman op KykNET met Mia Spies
Mia Spies praat met Willem Landman van DignitySA oor genadedood.
Dying with Dignity: A Contemporary Exploration from South African Legal and Moral Perspectives
An introduction to the current legal and moral perspectives surrounding dying with dignity in South Africa.
Sunday Times Editorial: Why deny others the right to escape a painful life?
A Sunday Times editorial on Sean Davison, the law, and the right to escape a painful life.