Assisted suicide lobby admits that assisted suicide for anorexia violates the law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In January I wrote an article about assisted suicide for anorexia nervosa. In the article I quoted from a case report published by the ACAMAID, an organization of assisted suicide practitioners who approved assisted suicide for anorexia nervosa by defining the condition as being "terminal." 

An article by Jennifer Brown that was published in the Colorado Sun on March 14 reports on Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, an internal medicine doctor who specializes in eating disorders and who published a paper on her experience with prescribing assisted suicide for three people with anorexia nervosa. Gaudiani approves assisted suicide for Anorexia Nervosa by falsely defining the condition as terminal.

America's leading assisted suicide lobby group responded to the article in the Colorado Sun by stating that assisted suicide for Anorexia Nervosa is a violation of the assisted suicide laws.

Kevin Dias, the Chief Legal Advocacy Officer for Compassion & Choices response to the Colorado Sun article by stating:

Medical aid-in-dying laws apply only to mentally capable, terminally ill patients with six months or less to live who are able to self-ingest the medication. Any deviation from these requirements violates the law and places physicians, family members and others in regulatory, civil and criminal jeopardy. This law does not and was never intended to apply to a person whose only diagnosis is anorexia nervosa.

The recent Oregon 2021 assisted suicide report also listed Anorexia Nervosa as a reason for assisted suicide.

We know that at least 3 people with anorexia nervosa died by assisted suicide in Colorado and at least 1 person with anorexia nervosa died by assisted suicide in Oregon and there could be many more. 

As stated by Kevin Diaz: 

"Any deviation from these requirements violates the law and places physicians, family members and others in regulatory, civil and criminal jeopardy. This law does not and was never intended to apply to a person whose only diagnosis is anorexia nervosa."

Therefore, is the assisted suicide lobby going to inform authorities of the suicide deaths that have occurred outside of the parameters of the assisted suicide law?

Also, will the assisted suicide lobby stop lying by telling legislators in states that are debating assisted suicide that these laws have never been violated?

On March 22 I published an article examining the research literature concerning anorexia nervosa which clearly concludes that Anorexia Nervosa is not a terminal condition but rather it is a chronic condition.

A study by Kamryn Eddy et al., published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in February 2017 titled: Recovery from Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa at 22 year Follow-Up recognizes that some people with Anorexia Nervosa die from the condition, but the study considers anorexia nervosa to be a chronic condition, not a terminal condition. The study is based on a 22 year follow-up and it concludes that for many people recovery is slow but nearly two-thirds of the participants fully recovered by year 22.

By prescribing lethal drugs for assisted suicide or lethally injecting a person (euthanasia) the clinician is abandoning the patient rather than helping the patient find hope with the potential of long-term recovery. 

Killing the patients abandons the patient and eliminates the prospect of recovery.