Oregon's experience with the 'Death-With-Dignity Act'

[The Straight Story]

Oregon's experience with the 'Death-With-Dignity Act'


In the controversial realm of right-to-die issues, Oregon has functioned as a sociopolitical laboratory in which actual data have collided with overblown projections of what might happen after voters approved the Death With Dignity Act via initiative in 1994.

That’s according to Ann Jackson, former CEO of the Oregon Hospice Association and former hospice caregiver who is now an end-of-life consultant. She spoke Monday to a large crowd at the Lewis and Clark Library about Oregon’s experience and what Montana may anticipate now that the state Supreme Court has mostly backed Judge Dorothy McCarter’s ruling permitting aid-in-dying under the Montana Constitution.

The ball is now in the Montana Legislature’s court, and we can expect lawmakers to take up various bills in January clarifying, setting up rules and regulations, and possibly even negating McCarter’s decision.

Jackson, who said she prefers “honest and open conversations about end-of-life fears and wishes,” noted that she was not in Helena to argue whether the practice of physician-assisted death is right or wrong.
“It is the law in Oregon,” she said.

The practice is legal in Oregon, Washington and now Montana, Jackson said, and though opponents to the law in Oregon said it would turn that state into a destination for those wishing to die, that hasn’t been the result. In the 11 years data have been collected, those asking for lethal medication total 723, while 460 people have actually chosen to end their lives by taking it.
There’s a convoluted history to Oregon’s “masterfully crafted” law, Jackson said, with an injunction put in place shortly after it was passed in 1994, a repeal referendum defeated in 1997, reversals via two U.S. attorneys general, appeals, and, finally, a U.S. Supreme Court decision in January 2006 supporting the Oregon law.

Currently, the law allows terminally ill adults 18 years or older who are Oregon residents, deemed capable of making the decision, and with less than six months to live to voluntarily request from their physician a prescription of lethal medication which they must self-administer if they choose to end their lives that way. There is a 15-day waiting period after the first written and witnessed request, along with other specific paperwork and other requirements, Jackson explained.

http://www.queencitynews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=11605&mode=flat&order=0&thold=0

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[HelenWheels]

2. No brainer

Every state should allow assisted suicide. If I want to kill myself I should be able to do so. There comes a time in some people's lives when it is just too hard to keep on keeping on. Pain, indignities, helplessness, etc can make one want to die.

[Froward69]

3. Humane

[DeschutesRiver]

4. I am a lifelong Oregonian

and our Death with Dignity Act gives me an option for which I am grateful. Just knowing that I have a choice sets me free from one worry, should it ever come to that.

There is no rational for encouraging and allowing people to be in control of their own lives and destiny, yet deprived of control of their own deaths.