| ORTL on Oregon Health Division Reports - Letter to the Editor (2000) |
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Dear Editor, Recent claims by proponents of assisted suicide concluding that Oregon's new law works could be construed as true only if the state's goal is to increase the suicides in a state which already has a higher-than-average suicide rate. Fans of the only law in the world which lets physicians write lethal prescriptions claim the Oregon Health Department's report proves all is well. Upon reading the report, however, some critical questions should be asked: Since more than half of the assisted suicide and euthanasia cases have gone unreported in the Netherlands, what is being done to ensure that the 15 cases reported in Oregon represents a full disclosure?Forty percent of the reported assisted suicide cases were done by doctors who had been found after one, two, or three doctors had refused to write a lethal prescription. Were dissenting doctors interviewed to determine if they had clinical grounds for declining to write the prescription? The first publicized case of assisted suicide involved a woman who had been refused the lethal dosage by an earlier doctor because he had diagnosed her as depressed. Is Oregon developing its own "Dr. Kevorkians"? Findings revealed pain, or fear of pain, was not a critical consideration in deciding upon assisted suicide. Are Oregonians satisfied with the fact that we now accept "personal autonomy" as a good reason for suicide? These questions, along with many others, should prompt critical thinkers to be dissatisfied with a law without any meaningful safeguards which functions under a shroud of secrecy. Gayle AtteberryOregon Right to Life Executive Director
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