Today and Wednesday I will update you on assisted suicide in Hawaii and Oregon. The latest numbers, incomplete and sketchy as they are, show that the number of physician-assisted suicides in Oregon increased again in 2003.
"There is a wall of secrecy around assisted suicide in Oregon," says Dr. Kenneth Stevens, a cancer doctor in Portland, Oregon, quoted by Physicians for Compassionate Care. "The proponents of assisted suicide and the Oregon Department of Human Services agency had promised that appropriate information would be provided to the public regarding what is happening with assisted suicide in what has been called the 'Oregon Experiment.' However, under the guise of confidentiality, assisted suicide is practiced covertly in Oregon."
Meanwhile, in Hawaii, days after the House Judiciary Committee approved an assisted suicide bill (mislabeled, as usual, as "Death With Dignity"), the measure was returned to the committee without a vote in the full house.
House Judiciary Vice Chairman Blake Oshiro, described by the Honolulu Advertiser as "among the main proponents," told the newspaper that House members were "divided" over HB 862, and that the Democrats believed it would be better to raise the issue again later, but not this session. "People were a little uncomfortable about taking this up in an election year," he said.
The Advertiser reported that the proposal "also faced an uphill fight in the Senate," and that "Gov. Linda Lingle has stated her opposition."
The proposed bill largely duplicates the Oregon law, passed by referendum in 1994, that authorizes lethal prescriptions for a broadly defined group of 'terminally ill' individuals -- including those, such as people needing kidney dialysis, who could survive indefinitely with life-saving medical treatment.
According to Burke Balch, NRLC's Director of Medical Ethics, "The defeat of the bill is a tremendous victory for grass roots prolifers, who, on the basis of information urgently supplied by Hawaii Right to Life, sent e-mails and phone calls in opposition that greatly outnumbered those in support."
Registered Nurse Jackie Mishler testified against the bill and published an impressive op-ed in the Hawaii Star Bulletin under the headline, "Physician-assisted suicide will create a new set of victims."
She wrote, "Physician-assisted suicide [PAS] is subject to unforeseen consequences and uncontrollable abuse. So-called safeguards are window dressing, particularly in protecting the elderly from those who will benefit from their deaths."
Mishler went on to cite examples of abuse before moving onto a highly influential 1994 New York State Task Force on Life & the Law report which unanimously rejected PAS "despite some strong PAS sentiment among the members."
"Why unanimous?," she wrote. "All members agreed that PAS was uncontrollable in the real world--even those who felt PAS was theoretically desirable voted against the legislation because it would cause more harm than good. Both the Hawaii Medical Association and the Hawaii Nurses Association agree, and both oppose PAS."
Hawaii was one of two states cited as targets in a 2003 fundraising letter sent out by the Hemlock Foundation. According to Mishler, that letter explained that Hemlock had a goal of spending $250,000 "on media advertising alone."
As we shall see Wednesday, Oregon, the only state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, is an object lesson in what happens when physicians pull double duty as healers and dispensers of lethal drugs.
posted by: Rosie (reply)
post date: 03.20.04 (10:12 am)
Today and Wednesday I will update you on assisted suicide in Hawaii and Oregon. The latest numbers, incomplete and sketchy as they are, show that the number of physician-assisted suicides in Oregon increased again in 2003.