Nobody Gets Arrested for Assisted Suicide in Oregon

The folks who were arrested in Georgia for attempting to help some poor soul stop suffering and die at the time and place of his or her choosing would not be in jail here in Oregon. They wouldn't even have an assisted suicide organization at all.

Thankfully, none of us in Oregon have to face either arrest nor a terribly painful lingering death if we don't want to. The voters twice agreed to our Death with Dignity law. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld it.

I have witnessed a patient take his own life using the law, surrounded by his friends and family, and at a time of his own choosing.

This is the humane way of doing things. Groups like Not Dead Yet, always paint a picture that's just not true. Our law works just fine. Nobody has been coerced into using it. Matter of fact, few use the law, but all of us in Oregon know that if we need it, it's there.

And nobody is going to get arrested for helping us.

Comments

[MarilynBB]

The right to make choices in our own life should be a basic right in my view. I'd like to be able to choose to end my life if all I saw ahead was the suffering I have seen too many go through. I hope this becomes a more accepted norm.

[CarlaAxtman]

Legalized aid in dying in fact does exist in Oregon, Washington and Montana. But based on media reports to date, the individuals who were arrested in Georgia would have in fact been arrested for their activities had they been doing so in Oregon.

Oregon's (and Washington's) Death With Dignity Law allows terminally-ill, mentally competent individuals to self administer medication to end their life at the time of their choosing (Montana has legalized aid in dying via court decision). Specific guidelines, rules and oversight are in place to ensure that the law is properly followed. (Learn more here: http://www.compassionandchoices.org/act/legislative_work/washington_dwd)

Media reports indicate that the individual assisted in Georgia was not terminally ill and therefore would not have qualified for legalized aid in dying in Oregon, Washington or Montana.

Let me be clear, however. The policies on aid in dying in all but these 3 states are merciless and irrational. Dying patients and their families are abandoned by legislators and health care workers who are frankly derelict in their responsibility.

Our society MUST DO BETTER.

Carla Axtman
Online Community Builder
Compassion & Choices
compassion­andchoices­.org

[snseattle]

People seem to assume that anyone who wants to end his life is merely depressed and needs help. In many cases that is very true. My father took his life when I was 15 after a lifetime of depression. It was a traumatic experience, of course. However, I voted for the right to die in Washington. It is a very different decision to take one's live in the face of the body's immenent physiological demise. When one can make a clear-minded choice with the input of others (doctors, family) as in our law, it is an act of compassion that they be allowed to choose when they peacefully stop their body from functioning. Our death is just as precious as our life.

[LeftRight]

Nobody should get arrested for Assisted Suicide ANYWHERE!!!

[Schaz]

Washington has followed Oregon's lead. This past election, we too passed a death with dignity act. It goes into effect next week. Although I hope I never need its protection, I am very grateful that the option is there.

[PlaceboStudman]

Thank you for this article. Thank you for reaffirming what so many of us who face death in the face every day already know. The arguments just do not hold up to real quantifyable experience. There is so much fear held by the opponents of death with dignity, that they simply can not see that we are not all the same, we do not all hold the same values and beliefs.

I am a disabled person, and I for one abhore the misleading propoganda that is being spouted by the Not Dead Yet type, as if they honestly believe that all of us speak with one voice or all have the same beliefs.

They absolutely have a right to their opinions and beliefs, but I resent their attempts to use "disability" as the sweeping generalization that all disabled feel the same way, and that we all have the same definitions of life and dignity, etc.

We must be seen as individuals with unique wants, needs and desires, and we must see to it that each person's wants needs and desires, including the desire to end suffering, even if it means ending life are fulfilled