Oregon nixes use of term "physician-assisted suicide"

Right-to-die advocates hope that changing the language may help pass laws in other states.

By Kevin B. O'Reilly, AMNews staff. Nov. 6, 2006.

Oregon's Dept. of Human Services announced last month that it no longer would use the term "physician-assisted suicide" to describe terminally ill patients who ask doctors to help them die.

Supporters of terminally ill patients' right to die prompted the move when they brought lawyers to a meeting with agency officials to argue that using the word "suicide" violated the state's Death With Dignity Act. Portland-based advocacy group Compassion & Choices asked the agency to consider substituting terms such as "physician-assisted death," "physician aid in dying" and "hastened death." Polls show that people are more likely to approve legalizing the practice when the word "suicide" is not used in describing it.

Not willing to litigate the matter and aspiring to be a neutral voice in the contentious debate, the agency said it would refer to the terminally ill patients who ask physicians to help them die as "persons who use the Oregon Death With Dignity Act."

The law states that "actions taken in accordance with [the statute] shall not, for any purpose, constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing or homicide, under the law."

Katrina Hedberg, MD, MPH, a medical epidemiologist in the agency's Public Health Division who produces an annual report about patients who use the law, said it "probably has not been correct for us to be using this language all along."