(Oregon Right to Life) — A radical bill to expand assisted suicide in Oregon received strong pushback during a public hearing on Monday. SB 1003 would expand Oregon’s “Death With Dignity Act” (DWDA) to make it easier for practitioners to end the lives of medically vulnerable people through assisted suicide.
SB 1003 came before the Oregon Senate for its second public hearing on June 2 following strong opposition and subsequent amendments earlier in the legislative session. Medical and mental health professionals and advocates for the medically vulnerable expressed vigorous opposition to the bill, noting that the amended legislation still poses serious risks to medically vulnerable people in Oregon and nationwide.
“What we’re facing is not a decision on ‘death with dignity,’ we’re facing a decision on death on demand,” Oregon Right to Life political director Sharolyn Smith said in testimony during the public hearing, urging senators to reject the bill.
Smith noted that numerous efforts to expand the bill have taken place since the initial passage of Oregon’s DWDA in the 1990s. And even without expansion, the bill places the lives of medically vulnerable people at risk.
According to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA)’s most recent annual report; DWDA prescriptions increased statewide by 8% in 2024 following a 30% jump in 2023; waiting periods are routinely waived (29% of cases in 2024); patients are very rarely referred for psychiatric evaluation (physicians wrote 607 prescriptions in 2024 and referred only three patients for psychiatric evaluation); the ingestion status of some 178 patients (29% of those prescribed lethal drugs last year) was unknown to the OHA as of the annual report – suggesting that lethal cocktails may be dangerously available in households across the state.
RELATED: Report: Oregon Assisted Suicide Prescriptions Increased 8% Last Year After 30% Spike in 2023
In her testimony, Sharon Quick, President of the Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation, pointed out that removing restrictions would jeopardize patients and devalue the lives of the disabled. She said that the overall condition of individuals suffering from a terminal illness would in practice render “consent unlikely” and “ingestion dangerous.”
Others who testified in opposition to the measure included Salem-based psychiatrist Dr. Satya Chandragiri, M.D. and pro-life Representative E. Werner Reschke.
After the conclusion of public testimony, Oregon pro-life Republican Senator Daniel Bonham remarked that many individuals have submitted written testimony opposing the bill from across the U.S., suggesting that “this is bigger than just an Oregon issue.”
Following the rollback of Oregon’s DWDA residency requirement, Oregon allows people from across the country to receive lethal prescriptions in Oregon, making any expansion of the law a matter that impacts the nation as a whole, not merely the state.
In addition to oral testimony, hundreds of individuals and groups from across the country submitted written testimony opposing the measure.
In his written testimony, Dr. Chandragiri said “SB1003 undermines the principle of adequate informed consent and the importance of trusting therapeutic relationship and the physician’s ethical duty – to ‘do no harm’, which has long been a cornerstone of our health care system.”
“Physician-assisted suicide is a threat to people with disabilities because it removes some of the explicit and implicit support for them by introducing the possibility of suicide,” Dr. Nathan Bradford, M.D., of South Carolina wrote. “Many of my patients require large amounts of societal and family support and resources. I can visualize a situation in which they would feel an obligation to undergo euthanasia to no longer pose a burden.”
“Assisted suicide is a deadly, discriminatory and exploitive practice because it creates two classes of people: those whose lives are protected, and those whose deaths are encouraged,” Dr. Mark J. Snell wrote. “There is no amount of ‘safeguards’ that will ever make assisted suicide safe or acceptable. We should instead introduce bills that provide for improved multidisciplinary care for our society’s most vulnerable. As physicians who care for patients with advanced illness, our profound duty is to relieve patients’ suffering rather than assist in their deaths.”
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Introduced in February, SB 1003 went before the Senate Judiciary Committee for its first public hearing on March 3, where it was similarly met with strong opposition from many experts and advocates. As originally introduced, Senate Bill 1003 would have reduced the 15-day waiting period to a mere 48 hours; allowed non-physicians to prescribe lethal drugs; and forced health care facilities to publicly disclose their participation in assisted suicide, making it easier to funnel patients toward pro-assisted suicide facilities.
Following pushback, lawmakers amended the bill to soften some of its more radical proposals. However, the amended bill would still reduce the 15-day waiting period to seven days; replace the word “physician” with “practitioner,” opening the door to later changes that would allow non-physicians to prescribe lethal drugs; and require institutions to advertise their DWDA participation on their websites or in a written notice presented to patients.
SB 1003 was moved to the Rules Committee in April without recommendation for passage, but the measure was picked up again and scheduled for a public hearing this month.
At the time of drafting/publication, a total of 427 individuals and groups submitted written testimony opposing SB 1003 while only 12 submitted testimony supporting the proposed legislation.
A work session is scheduled for Wednesday, June 4.
