PROFESSION

Assisted-suicide numbers up in Oregon

Opponents are concerned about the lack of psychological evaluations and the number of prescriptions taken after a 6-month prognosis has been eclipsed.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. April 5, 2004.

Record numbers of Oregon residents in 2003 received and took lethal prescriptions allowed by the state's Death With Dignity Act, permitting physician-assisted suicide, but these patients accounted for only one-seventh of 1% of all deaths in the state.

In all, 42 people used the law to hasten their deaths in 2003, and 67 lethal prescriptions were written, according to the sixth annual report released recently by the Oregon Dept. of Human Services. The previous highs, recorded in 2002, were 38 deaths and 58 prescriptions.

According to the report, 23 females and 19 males took the lethal prescriptions, all had insurance, 41 were white, 39 were enrolled in a hospice program, 35 had cancer and 32 had some college education.

Losing autonomy and not being able to engage in activities that made life enjoyable were common reasons cited for choosing assisted suicide.

The release of the report has become an annual ritual in Oregon, with opponents and supporters of assisted suicide simultaneously noting that the figures are either cause for alarm or proof that the law is being used as intended by a small number of people.

"The longer you keep an act in place, the more people become desensitized to it, and it no longer causes the appropriate righteous indignation," said William Toffler, MD, the national director of Physicians for Compassionate Care. "The report is not at all routine to me, and the closer you look, the uglier it gets."

Although he disagrees with their arguments, Peter Goodwin, MD, medical director of Compassion in Dying of Oregon, said he appreciates the presence of assisted-suicide opponents.

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