Physician Assisted Suicide

							Megan Conley
 Throughout North America, committing suicide
 or attempting to commit suicide is no longer a
 criminal offense. However, helping another
 person commit suicide is a criminal act. One
 exception is the state of Oregon which, since
 1997, has allowed people who are terminally ill
 and in intractable pain to obtain a lethal
 prescription from their physician and end their
 chronic suffering. This is called "Physician
 Assisted Suicide" or PAS.
   1991: Washington state: defeated narrowly 54% to 46%

   1992: California: Defeated narrowly 54% to 46%

   1998: Michigan: Defeated overwhelmingly 71% to 29%

   2000: Maine: Defeated very narrowly 51% to 49%.

   Between 1994 and 2006, there were 75 legislative
    bills to legalize PAS in 21 states. All of them failed.
 Permitted in Oregon under very tightly
 controlled conditions.

 Notspecifically mentioned in the laws of
 North Carolina, Utah and Wyoming.

 Specifically   criminalized in the remaining
 states.
   “The voters of Oregon acted with great humanity
    when they decided to allow terminally ill people to
    determine when they have suffered enough.” New
    York Times
   “How can there be ‘death with dignity’ when the
    patient must humbly petition the doctors, then
    meekly wait for a unanimous ruling?” Sheldon
    Richman, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom
    Foundation.
    “The longer you keep an act in place, the more
    people become desensitized to it, and it no longer
    causes the appropriate righteous indignation.”
    William Toffler, MD, national director of Physicians
    for Compassionate Care.
   The Death With Dignity law went into effect in Oregon
    in 1997. It allows some terminally-ill patients to request
    assistance in committing suicide. By the end of 2004,
    208 individuals have ended their life with the help of
    lethal prescriptions. The number appears to be leveling-
    off at about 40 assisted suicides per year. Physician
    assisted suicide under the act accounts for only one-
    seventh of one percent of all deaths in the state.
   92% reported a decreasing ability to participate in
    activities that made life enjoyable

   87% reported loss of autonomy

   78% reported loss of dignity

   In January of 2006, after years of litigation, the U.S.
    Supreme Court ruled that the Oregon program is
    constitutional and legal under current federal laws. It may
    continue, in spite of Federal Government efforts to close it
    down. However, they left the door open for future federal
    laws that might outlaw the practice.