Monday, August 30, 2021

Hawaii 2020 assisted suicide report - more death - and the report demands even more death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Hawaii assisted suicide law came into effect on January 1, 2019. The 2019 Hawaii assisted suicide ("Our care, our choice act") report indicated that in the first year of the assisted suicide law: 
  • 30 people were prescribed a lethal drug cocktail, 
  • 15 people died by assisted suicide, 
  • 8 people who received a lethal prescription died a natural death and 
  • 7 people who received a lethal prescription were alive at the end of 2019.

The Hawaii 2020 assisted suicide report that was recently released indicated that:

  • 37 people where prescribed a lethal drug cocktail, 
  • 25 people died by assisted suicide, 
  • 7 people who received a lethal prescription died a natural death,
  • the status of four people who received a lethal presciption is unknown.

When the status is unknown, the person may have died by assisted suicide but no reports were received.

Similar to the 2019 report, the 2020 report concludes with the Hawaii Department of Health lobbying for an expansion of the assisted suicide law. The report states:

The DOH recommends the following changes to the OCOCA.
  1. Waiver of any waiting periods if the attending provider and consulting provider agree that patient death is likely prior to the end of the waiting periods. 
  2.  Given access to health care providers is limited, the DOH recommends authorizing advance practice registered nurses to serve as attending providers for patients seeking medical aid in dying. 

As stated by Wesley Smith's commentary on the Hawaii assisted suicide report:

Please understand, dear readers, that when assisted-suicide advocates promise strict guidelines to protect against abuse, they don’t really mean it. The promise’s purpose is to get the law passed, not to be kept.

Hawaii is not the only jurisdiction pushing for more death. A court case was just launched by the assisted death movement in California to expand its assisted suicide law to euthanasia (homicide).

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