Assisted suicide group should be investigated in Washington State.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In their summer 2016 newsletter - End of Life Washington (known as Compassion & Choices in the past and as the Hemlock Society in the past/past) urged its supporters to support them based on the fact that End of Life Washington facilitated 93% of the assisted suicide deaths in 2015.

Since End of Life Washington essentially controls the assisted suicide law then why has there not been an investigation into the clear abuse of the law that are found in the annual report?

According to the 2014 annual report, there were 176 lethal prescriptions written resulting in 126 assisted suicide deaths, 17 deaths from other causes, 27 deaths from an unknown cause and 6 people remained alive.

The annual report indicates that they do not know if the 27 deaths from "unknown causes" resulted from assisted suicide and they do not know the status of the lethal prescriptions for these deaths. In other words, no report was submitted and no information is known, except that the person received a lethal prescription and is now dead.

According to the 2015 annual report there were 213 lethal prescriptions in 2015 resulting in 166 reported assisted suicide deaths, with 24 deaths from other causes, 12 deaths where the "ingestion status" was unknown, and 11 people remained alive.

Once again when the ingestion status is unknown, then the status of the lethal drugs is also unknown.

According to the law, two doctors are required to approve the assisted suicide death. The doctor who writes the lethal prescription is then required to submit a report (self-reporting) to the government after the person dies.

End of Life Washington facilitates assisted suicide deaths by refering people to doctors who are willing to assist their suicide and counseling them in the process.

Considering the lack of oversight and the missing data, clearly there needs to be a third-party investigation into the activities of End of Life Washington.

Thank you to Wesley Smith for reporting on this issue first.