Salem, OR — As pro-life advocates who opposed making Oregon the first state in the U.S. to legalize assisted suicide feared, the grisly practice is becoming more prevalent.
According to Compassion in Dying, a lobbyist group favoring assisted suicide, nearly twice as many people used the Oregon law last year as in 2001.
In 2002, 30 of Compassion's clients killed themselves using assisted suicide, up from 17 a year earlier and 21 in 2000. The group says its statistics capture about 80 percent of the assisted suicide deaths in Oregon.
Between 1998 and 2001, 91 people legally took their own lives in Oregon. Official statistics for 2002 will be released by the state in early March.
“It is not surprising that the numbers of assisted suicides have doubled. Nor should it be surprising that they may again double and redouble over the years,” explains Tom Marzen, a pro-life attorney for the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependant and Disabled.
“Assisted suicide is now legally acceptable there, and people are becoming more aware of its availability. The social stigma dissolves and, most important, it is a cheaper and easier alternative than caring for terminally ill and disabled persons. Oregon has introduced a bad apple in the health care barrel,” Marzen told the Pro-Life Infonet.
The law has drawn the opposition of many doctors, pro-life and religious groups, including U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who is trying to prevent the use of federally-regulated drugs in assisted suicides with a lawsuit now at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Most observers expect the case will ultimately go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Publicity generated by Ashcroft's lawsuit may have encouraged more patients to apply for assisted suicide claims one assisted suicide advocate.
“It (the lawsuit) put us on the front page of every newspaper in Oregon. A lot of people said they were unaware of the law until then,” said George Eighmey, executive director of Oregon's Compassion in Dying chapter. Physicians are also more aware and may feel more comfortable with the law, he said.
James Romney, a former school superintendent with Lou Gehrig's disease, stood on the steps of the federal court house in Portland late last year arguing against Ashcroft's lawsuit. Romney already has his lethal prescription, but has not yet decided when to use it.
“I do not intend to live my final days without control over my daily life,” Romney wrote in a court brief detailing the painful death by suffocation he expected in less than two years. He has already lost the ability to stand or speak.
Pro-life advocates say more should be done to help control patient's pain and suggest the assisted suicide policy is bad medicine. “It is bad public policy for the state to affirm the appropriateness of people taking their own lives,” said Father John Tuohey, a priest and medical ethicist at Portland's Providence Hospital System. He warned of a “slippery slope” to deciding “which lives it is permissible to end and which not.”
Others say doctors and hospitals offer adequate pain management and end-of-life care.
“Everyone using the law is frightened into it. They are told their deaths will be painful or undignified,” said Greg Hamilton, a psychiatrist and member of Physicians for Compassionate Care. “We can take care of these patients.”
Compassion in Dying and others concede that end-of-life care has improved in Oregon and across the country, but contend that Oregon's unique law has driven those improvements.
Hamilton rejected that argument, saying: “That's baloney.”
Many people who choose assisted suicide want to avoid burdening others when they can no longer care for themselves.
“What does that say about society that anybody would worry about that,” said Father Tuohey. “It should not bother me that I lose control of my bowels. What is it about dying that people think they are losing their dignity?”
Some Catholics liken suicide to abortion, both of which the church opposes.
“No matter what you call it, this is the killing of an innocent human being,” said Mary Jo Tully, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Portland. “Yes, it is your own life, but life is God-given.”
Oregonians voted twice to approve assisted suicide. To get a lethal prescription, patients must have less than six months to live and ask for the drugs several times, at least once in writing. They must also take the lethal cocktail themselves; a doctor cannot administer it.
The Arizona state legislature is considering its own assisted-suicide bill, which would allow terminally ill people to die in a “painless, humane and dignified manner.” Hawaii rejected a bill last year and Maine and Michigan have defeated referendums to legalize assisted suicide.
Most people who have used the law are older, highly educated and have health insurance, statistics show.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)