What Does ‘Suicide’ Have to do with the Oregon assisted suicide Model?

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is a disability activists and a member of the EPC-USA board.

Meghan Schrader

One time when I was testifying at an Oregon model assisted suicide hearing I decided to describe one of my episodes of psychotic depression in detail, to try to get legislators to observe parallels between what I was describing and the experiences of terminal illness that the proponents were describing. It struck me as a way to illustrate the overlap between the Oregon Model proponents’ logic that assisted suicide is a valid response to end of life suffering, and expansionists’ logic that “psychiatric assisted suicide” is a valid solution for extreme mental suffering.

Also, the Oregon assisted suicide model proponents describe disturbing physical symptoms at hearings all the time. So it should be ok for me to describe my past severe psychiatric symptoms, right?

The legislators looked at me kind of like I was high and then made comments along the lines that what I had described had nothing to do with the proposed law, but they appreciated my bravery in sharing my story.

I feel kind of silly about that testimony now. After all, I was describing severe mental illness, not a terminal illness like cancer. Also, maybe providing all those details came across as trauma dumping and attention-seeking. Perhaps it would have sufficed to say, “Having experienced mental illness in the past and observed expansionists efforts to legalize psychiatric euthanasia, I think society should not take another step towards that world by legalizing the Oregon model.”

But I still think that talking about severe mental illness and suicidal ideation during discussions about the Oregon model is less ridiculous than those legislators seemed to think. As disability rights opponents of assisted suicide have pointed out, the distinction between “terminally ill” and “disabled” can be blurrier than the Oregon model proponents would like it to be. There are some people who can live for years with their disabilities with the proper support, yet would die quickly if that support were withdrawn. And some of those people experience suicidal ideation. Moreover, there have been instances of people with mental illnesses like anorexia nervosa dying by assisted suicide. This abuse thins the distinction between “suicide” and assisted suicide” that the Oregon model proponents perceive.

Furthermore, some proponents have openly admitted that they want to medicalize disabled people’s suicides; famous euthanasia activist, Thaddeus Mason Pope told me so.

Nevertheless, I’ll entertain the position that there may often be meaningful distinctions between the “Oregon assisted suicide model” and “regular” suicide, with respect to the reasoning behind the decision, the possibility of graphic violence, the typical impact on family members, the length of time that the person had left to live, etc. So, I can understand why there are a lot of people who think that equating the Oregon assisted suicide model and suicide is “silly.”

I’ll again use my former pastor as an example. This pastor was a wonderful person and a dedicated faith leader. She did a lot of great work with marginalized people. She was also very anti-suicide. One time when I was sobbing in front of her about how much pain I was in during a bad bout of depression, she asked, “I don’t want to scare you, but as your pastor I need to know: are you having any thoughts about hurting yourself? Is there anything that we need to do to keep you safe?”

I wasn’t planning to harm myself, but I appreciated the compassion behind the pastor’s question.

This pastor also did a lot of terrific work with terminally ill people, and she disagreed with me about the Oregon assisted suicide model. When we had a friendly debate about the issue, she said, “Having been with people who have experienced a horrible death from Glioblastoma, I strongly reiterate my comments. And I hope that I would have the grace to make a similar choice.”

Obviously I disagree with the pastor, but I feel able to respect her motivations and logic. After all, she had had years of working with terminally ill people and I hadn’t. And she had worked with a lot of people experiencing suicidal ideation. So although assisted suicide and “regular” suicide both involve dying by one’s own hand (and hence meet the technical definition of suicide) I can “get where she was coming from.”

Unfortunately, not all assisted suicide proponents think like my former pastor. Some of them would like to expand assisted suicide to disabled people who aren’t dying. And that’s a situation where I think proponents’ distinction between assisted suicide and suicide is indisputably linked to ableism.

Disabled people are already systemically excluded from suicide prevention. Peer-reviewed research shows that there is a high suicide rate among people with disabilities and that people are more likely to think suicide is acceptable if the victim is disabled. There is also a lack of suicide prevention resources designed for people with disabilities. In that context, suicide prevention organizations equivocating on whether disabled people’s assisted suicide deaths are suicides falls into a longstanding pattern of abandonment.

The Oregon assisted suicide model proponents’ argument that assisted suicide is never suicide would be on much firmer ground if the Oregon model had never been used to kill people with anorexia, and if it were the only assisted suicide model that existed anywhere in the world. But it isn’t. Moreover, the Oregon model movement leaders routinely do things that normalize discussions about expanding assisted suicide such as by rubbing elbows with assisted suicide expansionists who have said that medicalizing the suicides of disabled people is ok. Compassion and Choices leaders cannot possibly have missed People Magazine and the New York Times’ enthusiastic platforming of people with chronic mental illnesses who would like to die by assisted suicide. Compassion and Choices leaders have published statements declining to take a position on whether Canada’s euthanasia (MAiD) program is ok, even though the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of People With Disabilities says that it’s not.

In short, although the Oregon model is ostensibly limited to terminally ill persons, it is helping to normalize the expansive proponents’ position that disabled people’s suicides are therapeutic.

Author Note: For a nuanced discussion of why what the Oregon Model proponents call "MAiD" is best described as “Assisted Suicide,” and why such “MAiD” is most accurately understood as a variation of suicide, read Harold Braswell’s article, “In Defense of "Physician-Assisted Suicide": Toward (and Back to) a Transparent, Destigmatizing Debate.”

Woman who sought assisted suicide 26 years ago is happy to be alive.

Alex with Jeanette Hall

Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

We received a message from Jeanette Hall who commented on the article concerning France legalizing euthanasia. Jeanette wrote:

Alex. It is 26 years (July 17, 2000) that I learned I had terminal colon cancer and wanted to follow that same course with Oregon's law and asked Dr. Kenneth Stevens to help me end my life. I pray there are many Dr. Stevens in France that will want to see their patient live. Still "Great to be Alive."

Dr Kenneth Stevens is a physician in Oregon who helped Jeanette find a reason to live.

 

The text from the youtube video explaining the story.

The patient that I specifically recall is a patient by the name of Jeanette Hall. She was referred to me by her surgeon. She had a low rectal cancer.

So when I saw her I told her what she had, I told her we could treat it with radiation and chemotherapy and said that this is potentially treatable.

She said I don't want to go through all that. I had an Aunt who lost her hair and I don't want to lose my hair.

She went back and saw the surgeon. The surgeon told her that if she wasn't treated that she would be dead within 6 months or a year.

The Oregon law says that if life expectancy is 6 months you qualify for the law so I could have written her a prescription for the lethal medication at that time.

She came back and I talked with her again and she said: why aren't you giving me the pills? I want the pills.

I learned more about her. I learned that she had a son who was going to the police academy. I said:

Wouldn't you like to see him graduate? That really made her think that I really have something to live for.

She really struggled in her mind as to whether she was going to be treated or not treated. She finally accepted the treatment, it took a few weeks to give, it was not easy, she actually did lose her hair and her hair grew back and she was able to attend her son's graduation from the police academy.

Five years later, my wife and I were at a restaurant and she was there with a friend and she came over and she said:

Doctor Stevens, you saved my life. If I had gone to a doctor that believed in assisted suicide I would not be here. I'd be dead.

More information about Jeanettte Hall.

• Patients recovery convinces doctor to fight assisted suicide (Read).

A deeper analysis into the Oregon 2025 assisted suicide report

A 2025 Oregon assisted suicide death took 123 hours (more than 5 days) to die.
Assisted suicide is not a peaceful or a dignified way to die.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On April 6 I reported that the 2025 Oregon assisted suicide report stated that there were 637 poison prescriptions written in 2025 which was up from 609 in 2024. I also reported that the 2025 Oregon report indicated that there were 400 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2025.

I then stated that based on reporting issues there were likely 450 (not 400) assisted suicide deaths in 2025.

As stated in the headline, in 2025 the longest time of death was 123 hours (more than 5 days). Deaths that take 123 hours are clearly not a peaceful or dignified deaths. In 2023 the longest time of death was 137 hours (almost 6 days).

It is possible that there were other long drawn out deaths, but the Oregon report only has data when someone else was present at the death. The Oregon report indicates that data is only available in 291 of the 400 deaths.

Oregon assisted suicide reported deaths:

The 2024 Oregon report stated that there were 376 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2024. The 2025 report updated the data and stated that there were 421 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2024. Therefore more than 12% (45) of the Oregon assisted suicide death reports were received late.

When an Oregon doctor prescribes the assisted suicide poison cocktail the Oregon assisted suicide law requires that same doctor to send a report to the Oregon Health Authority after the patient died. 

The 2025 report stated that a doctor was present at the death in 111 of the 400 reported assisted suicide deaths and in 2024, a doctor was only present at the death in 117 of the 421 reported assisted suicide deaths. Since the prescribing doctor is usually not present at the death, it doesn't surprise me that many of the reports are submitted to the Oregon Health Authority late.

Based on the fact that more than 12% of the 2024 reports were reported in 2025, I predict a similar outcome in 2026 resulting in approximately 450 reported 2025 assisted suicide deaths being declared within the 2026 Oregon report.

For further clarification. The 2025 Oregon report stated that there were 389 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2023. The 2024 report stated that there were 386 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2023 and the 2023 report stated that there were 367 reported assisted suicide deaths. That means there were 2023 assisted suicide reports submitted in 2024 and there were 2023 assisted suicide death reports submitted in 2025.

Are there unreported assisted suicide deaths in Oregon?

The Oregon Health Authority does not investigate the deaths of people who were prescribed and receiving a poison cocktail but whose doctor did not submit an assisted suicide report. Therefore I can only speculate that some Oregon assisted suicide deaths go unreported.

The data is suspicious.

According to the 2025 Oregon assisted suicide report, 637 poison prescriptions were obtained. The 637 poison prescriptions resulted in 358 people who were known to have died by assisted suicide, (42 people were known to have died by assisted suicide but received the poison in previous years), 100 people died a natural death and the ingestion status was unknown in 179 cases of which 80 died but the ingestion status was unknown and for 99 people the death and ingestion status was unknown.

When the ingestion status is unknown the Oregon Health Authority does not know if the person died a natural death or died by assisted suicide.

Since I am predicting that 50 of the 179 "ingestion status unknown" cases are assisted suicide deaths where the assisted suicide report will be received late. But considering the fact that a doctor is usually not at the death, it is likely that some of the remaining 129 "ingestion status unknown" cases are actually unreported assisted suicide deaths.

Oregon is not the only state with these reporting problems.

The California 2024 assisted suicide report also reported that a significant number of assisted suicide reports received late, but the 2024 California report also indicated that of the 1591 Californians who received the poison prescription, the ingestion status was unknown for 388 of the people. It is likely that California has a problem with the under reporting of assisted suicide deaths.

Are there other ways that the Oregon law lacks oversight?

The Oregon assisted suicide law was sold to the public based on competent adults who are freely consenting and "self-ingest" the poison. 

In most Oregon assisted suicide deaths there is no way to know whether those conditions were met. The first reason is that a medical professional is usually not at the death. The second reason is that the Oregon law relies on a self-reporting system, meaning, the doctor who prescribes the poison is also the doctor that is required to report the death. There is no effective oversight in a self-reporting system. Doctors will not self-report abuse of the law. The third reason is that the Oregon Health Authority does not have the legislated authority to research the cases where the person died and the ingestion status is unknown.

Killing has become a specialty.

The 2025 report states that 155 physicians prescribed assisted suicide poison at least once, but one physician, in 2025, prescribed the assisted suicide poison 101 times. In 2024 one physician prescribed the poison 84 times and in 2023 one physician prescribed the poison 76 times. It is very likely that one physician has prescribed the assisted suicide poison 261 times in the past three years.

Inadequate pain control is not a primary reason for assisted suicide requests.

The death lobby sells the legalization of assisted suicide based on the fear of dying a painful death, but the data indicates that most people do not seek assisted suicide based on inadequate control of pain. 

The 2025 report states that the three main reasons that Oregonians asked for assisted suicide were: 89% Losing autonomy, 89% Less able to engage in activities that make life enjoyable, 65% Loss of dignity (an undefined concern).

There is much more that I could write about the 2025 Oregon assisted suicide report but I will conclude by pointing out a few more concerns:

• 2 out of 637 people who were prescribed poison received a psychological or psychiatric evaluation and in 2024 not one of the 609 who were prescribed poison received a psychological or psychiatric evaluation.

• 54% of the people who died by assisted suicide were women.

• There were 37 out of state residents who were prescribed poison.

More information on these topics.

• Oregon 2024 assisted suicide report (Read).
• The California 2024 assisted suicide report. The data is not accurate (Read).
• Washington state had a record number of assisted suicide deaths (Read).

Oregon 2025 assisted suicide report: A record number of poison prescriptions.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The 2025 Oregon assisted suicide report stated that 637 lethal poison prescriptions were written under the Oregon assisted suicide law which was up from 609 in 2024 and 566 in 2023.

Tom Jeanne, M.D., MPH, the deputy state health officer and epidemiologist at OHA’s Public Health Division stated that:

“What we’ve been seeing over the last several years is a steady overall increase in prescriptions and deaths among Death with Dignity Act participants,”

The 2025 Oregon report indicated that there were 421 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2024 and 400 in 2025. Due to reporting problems there were likely 450 assisted suicide deaths in 2025.

The problem with inaccurate data.

Similar to previous years the 2025 report updated the data from the 2024 report. The 2024 report stated that there were 376 assisted suicide deaths, but the 2025 report stated that there were 421 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2024. The 2025 report increased the number of 2024 reported assisted suicide deaths by 45 or more than 12%.

The OHA must have received 45 assisted suicide death reports from 2024 later in 2025. Some people suggest that the Oregon assisted suicide report is published too early for doctors to report all assisted suicide deaths. But that is not the case. The 2024 report was published on March 27, 2025 whereas in years earlier the report was published in late January or early February. Since there is no effective oversight of the law, some doctors are submitting their death reports much later and it is likely that some death reports are never submitted.

The 2025 report indicated that there were 400 reported assisted suicide deaths. I predict that the actual number is around 450 assisted suicide deaths or 12.5% higher.

According to the report:

• 24 (6%) of the 400 DWDA patients who died in 2025 had outlived their prognosis—that is, they lived more than six months after receiving their prescription.
• 94% of the participants were white
• 37 prescription recipients (6%) lived outside Oregon, an increase from 24 (4%) in 2024.

The last point indicates that suicide tourism is increasing in Oregon. There may be more out-of-state assisted suicide deaths than indicated in the report since the Oregon Health Authority has no jurisdicion over deaths that occur outside of Oregon.

As in previous years, the three most frequently reported end‐of‐life concerns were:

• loss of autonomy (89%), 
• decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (89%), 
• and loss of dignity (65%). 

As in previous years, pain and symptom control are not among the top reasons for assisted suicide in Oregon.

There is little oversight of the law and if a doctor did not submit an assisted suicide report, there is no way for the Oregon Health Authority to know.

The data also lacks accuracy since the law does not require third party oversight. Therefore it is impossible to know if the deaths were freely requested or voluntary.

It is important to note that the Oregon Health Authority depends on a self-reporting system. The data is gathered from the reports is submitted by the doctors who prescribed the suicide poison. Concerns with individual cases are "covered up" since the doctors who carry out the death also report the death.

Nothing in the report assures the readers that assisted suicide about choice and autonomy. These laws give doctors the legal right to be involved with killing their patients.

I am working on a deeper analysis of the Oregon 2025 assisted suicide report. 

Links to more articles on this topic:

• The push to legalize and extend assisted suicide in America (Link).
• Oregon 2024 assisted suicide report (Link). 
• Death by assisted suicide is not what you think it is (Link). 
• Assisted suicide: Proceed with caution (Link). 
• Assisted suicide is the wrong prescription (Link). 
• Assisted suicide. It's not that simple (Link). 
• Assisted suicide deaths are not what you think they are (Link). 
• Assisted suicide is neither painless nor dignified (Link).

Is assisted suicide always peaceful?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The question of whether or not assisted suicide poison cocktails actually lead to a peaceful death has been examined and studied by several researchers and medical professionals.

Manuela Callari just added to the debate with an article that was published in Medscape on February 3, 2026. Callari writes:

The scene was meticulously set for a final, serene farewell. Family and friends gathered, champagne was poured, and a pianist played softly in the background. In this atmosphere of profound emotion, Arjen Göbel, MD, a general practitioner in Amstelveen, Netherlands, began the procedure that would bring a planned and peaceful end to his patient’s life.

Following the standard protocol, he began by injecting a coma-inducing drug. The 48-year-old patient with breast cancer closed her eyes and a deep hush fell over the room as her breathing grew shallower.

But the expected stillness did not come. The family noticed that the patient continued to breathe. Göbel, maintaining an outward calm, saw it too.

Callari reports that the woman didn't die. Göbel fetched an emergency kit and injected her again, but she still didn't die. Callari reports:

Göbel called an ambulance service while he fetched two more emergency kits from a nearby pharmacy. The paramedics helped him inject the lethal cocktail directly into a vein in her groin, but nothing happened. They then injected the fourth dose into the artery in her neck. It wasn’t until half an hour later at 6 o’clock in the evening — 4 hours after the first injection — that she finally died. The planned, beautiful farewell had become a prolonged and traumatic ordeal. “It was the worst thing in my life,” Göbel told Medscape News Europe.

Callari continues by explaining that unlike other "procedures" there are very studies or protocols concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Similar stories of long drawn-out deaths can be witnessed in the Oregon assisted suicide data which indicated that one death, in 2023, took 137 hours to be completed.

Callari then defines euthanasia and assisted suicide for clarity.

Euthanasia is the intentional, direct administration of a lethal substance by a physician to end a patient’s life at their voluntary request to end unbearable suffering.

Assisted dying (suicide) is the voluntary, self-administered ingestion of lethal drugs prescribed by a physician. Crucially, the patient, not the doctor, performs the final, fatal act.

Notice how Callari uses pro-death definitions by implying that the wish to be killed is based on ending unbearable suffering, when the data in nearly every jurisdiction that allows death by lethal poison indicate that only a minority seek death based on ending unbearable suffering.

Callari then explains how euthanasia was first legalized in the Netherlands. Callari comments on the lack of protocols by stating:

It wasn’t until around 2010 — 8 years after the Dutch Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act was officially introduced — that physicians approached pharmacists to develop a joint guideline. This collaboration resulted in the first combined protocol in 2012, with its most recent major update in 2021.

Today, the Dutch standard for euthanasia is a two-step intravenous (IV) process: a high dose of a coma-inducing barbiturate (typically propofol) followed by a neuromuscular blocker (usually rocuronium) to paralyze the respiratory muscles. A small dose of lidocaine is often injected prior to the process to reduce the burning sensation of the barbiturate.

Without going into further descriptions around killing it is important to note that the Callari suggests that the complications rate is generally under-reported and states that the 2023 Oregon data indicates a 9.8% complications rate.

Callari also comments on studies on the effect of the poison drug regimen on the body, particularly the lungs, and states:

Philippe Camus, MD, professor of pulmonology and respiratory intensive care at Dijon University Hospital in Dijon, France, has studied the effect of drugs on the lungs since 1972, when he began collecting data as a medical student at the University of Burgundy. Over five decades, he has compiled more than 200,000 references into a global database tracking drug-induced respiratory disease.

Even at therapeutic dosages, he explained, anesthetics such as propofol can cause ventilatory depression, a deep coma, peripheral vasodilation, and myocardial dysfunction. At therapeutic doses, however, these risks are minimal and promptly managed. “The poison is in the dose,” he said.

Callari quotes Didier Cataldo, MD, PhD, pulmonologist at the University of Liège in Liège, Belgium who explains:

These drugs shut down the brain’s drive to breathe, the patient becomes comatose, and breathing slows and becomes shallow. A deep coma can lead to loss of airway reflexes, which means the patient is no longer able to cough or gag. The tongue falls back, blocking the upper airway and causing effort during inhalation. This creates a vacuum inside the chest. As the diaphragm contracts to draw air into the lungs against a closed glottis, the pressure inside the alveoli drops rapidly and becomes significantly lower than the pressure in the surrounding blood vessels. This pressure difference acts like a suction pump. It forces fluid, and sometimes red blood cells, out of the pulmonary capillaries and across the thin membrane into the alveoli, resulting in negative pressure pulmonary edema. This is why, in standard surgery, patients are sometimes intubated and connected to a ventilator before the full anesthetic load is delivered. Anesthetics can also cause vasodilation and myocardial dysfunction. This causes a drastic drop in blood pressure, making it impossible for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body.

While Cataldo claims that pulmonary endema is rare he does refer to a case of an 18-year-old male who ingested a lethal overdose of pentobarbital, the same barbiturate used in the oral method for assisted death. When emergency teams arrived, they found the patient in cardiac arrest. But as they attempted to intubate him, they found a “substantial quantity of frothy, bloody secretions” discharging from his throat. A postmortem CT scan confirmed severe bilateral pulmonary edema. His lungs were sodden with fluid. The patient, sedated but perhaps not yet dead, might have struggled to breathe against a blocked airway, drowning himself from the inside.

Similar research by Dr Joel Zivot who researched autopsies of people who died by lethal injection capital punishment. Zivot found that the lungs were filled with fluid likely resulting in death by drowning.

Callari continues with comments by Philippe Camus:

Camus said that experiencing pulmonary edema would be like drowning on dry land. It feels like being forced to breathe through a narrow straw. Every attempt to inhale draws not air but a mixture of blood and fluid that churns into a thick, pink froth. This foam rises up the trachea, blocking the windpipe. The brain, starved of oxygen, triggers a state of panic. “We need to decide whether that’s pain,” Camus said. “It’s not physical pain but can be extremely distressing.”

Callari then interviews several euthanasia doctors who suggest that pulmonary edema is unlikely, but even if it is happening, that the amount of drug that is used causes the person to be in a deep coma and unlikely to experience pain or distress.

Nonetheless, Callari concludes by stating that we simply don't know if assisted suicide is always peaceful.

More articles on this topic:

• Death by assisted suicide is not what you think it is (Link). 
• Assisted suicide: Proceed with caution (Link). 
• Assisted suicide is the wrong prescription (Link). 
• Assisted suicide. It's not that simple (Link). 
• Assisted suicide deaths are not what you think they are (Link). 
• Assisted suicide is neither painless nor dignified (Link).

Peter Singer, My Deathbed, And Why I Can’t Trust ‘MAiD’

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader  

Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and is a member of the EPC-USA board. 

One of the reasons that I decided to go back to school to get a Masters degree in Special Education instead of getting a PH.D in disability studies was so that I could stop thinking about Peter Singer so often. I was deeply shocked upon finding his “let’s kill disabled babies” screeds in college, and a lot of my musicology/disability studies research on how the history of eugenics influences contemporary narratives about euthanasia and disability was me trying to understand why turn of the twenty first century society had allowed such a hateful bully to have a platform. My inquiry into this matter led to published research on how pro eugenic narratives about disabled people and euthanasia were communicated in film music, and I loved my research. But, after I recovered from my first bout of psychotic depression, it occurred to me that if I didn’t refocus some of my intellectual energies, I might one day be in my 90s on my deathbed, ranting that Peter Singer was a scumbag. And a hospice nurse would say, “Yes, yes, dear, he’s dead now; he’s been dead for many years.” And then I would pass away peacefully, secure in the knowledge that Peter Singer was dead.

This intellectual entanglement might seem sort of ridiculous, and be kind of unhealthy, but I think my deep anger is understandable. Because in addition to comparing disabled people to chimpanzees and saying that disabled babies should be killed to contain healthcare premiums, Singer also thinks that it’s acceptable to rape some of us. 

In 2017 a therapist named Anna Stubblefield was arraigned on charges of having sexually assaulted D.J., a disabled man with cerebral palsy and cognitive impairment. She claimed that the sexual contact was consensual, but D.J.’s family disagreed. In a New York Times editorial about the case, Peter Singer and his colleague Jeff McMahan wrote:

“If we assume that [the alleged victim, D.J.] is profoundly cognitively impaired, we should concede that he cannot understand the normal significance of sexual relations between persons or the meaning and significance of sexual violation. . . . In that case, he is incapable of giving or withholding informed consent to sexual relations; indeed he may lack the concept of consent altogether.

This does not exclude the possibility that he was wronged by Stubblefield, but it makes it less clear what the nature of the wrong might be. It seems reasonable to assume that the experience was pleasurable to him . . . it seems that if Stubblefield wronged or harmed him, it must have been in a way that he is incapable of understanding and that affected his experience only pleasurably.”

Kevin Mintz. A disability studies scholar with cerebral palsy, published an article about the Stubblefield case in the journal Disability and Society titled “Ableism, Ambiguity and the Stubblefield Case,” in which he notes:

“Philosophers Jeff McMahan and Peter Singer also marginalize and objectify D.J. in their op-ed in The New York Times. In particular, they argue that if D.J. truly is severely intellectually disabled, then it is not clear what harm was done to him if Stubblefield did, in fact, sexually assault him. Their logic is flawed because it supposes that for someone to be harmed, they have to actually perceive the harm being done to them. This would also imply that sex crimes against anyone who is incapable of perceiving harm are not explicitly harmful. What would that mean for cases involving children who might not understand when harm is being done to them, the unconscious, or the intoxicated?

As a professional in the field of human sexuality, I find this conclusion appalling and dangerous. There is not enough research on the effects of trauma in these kinds of cases to be able to definitively determine whether such assaults are or are not harmful in their own right.”

Yes: according to Singer and McMahon, DJ could not have the same human reaction to trauma as a neurotypical, able-bodied person, and therefore it was ok if Stubblefield used him as a sex toy. 

Oregon assisted suicide model proponents’ tolerance for people like Singer is one of the major reasons for why I do not support the Oregon model. What does publishing Singer and MacMahon’s column say about the New York Times, which loudly favors “MAiD” and also published an article saying that a man shooting his Alzheimer’s affected wife in the head was a “love story”? The Completed Life Initiative gave an “End of Life Pioneer” award to Connecticut “MAiD” activist Lynda Bluestien just a month after it gave Singer a platform at its Faith Sommerfield Memorial Lecture in 2023. Why should disabled people trust the judgment or intentions of a movement that rubs elbows with a man who thinks raping cognitively impaired people is ok? 

I realize that advocacy sometimes requires working with people with whom we might not agree, and I do not like everything every fellow euthanasia opponent does or believes, but I swear to God, none of the “MAiD” opponents that I work with has ever said that raping or killing people is ok. 

Alas, mainstream “MAiD” advocates are not alone in platforming people like Peter Singer. Singer has been referred to as “the most influential living philosopher.” As I’ve mentioned, the coercion I experienced in the Special Education system led me to want to help prevent even one person from being coerced into assisted suicide, but the second major disability justice reason why I cannot support the Oregon model is because so many people in this world love Peter Singer. A world that doesn’t know any better than to platform a man who thinks that raping disabled people is ok has not earned the responsibility to regulate death. 

Author Note: I’ve discussed my struggles with unfortunate, involuntary feelings of kind of “wanting” Peter Singer to die so that he can’t hurt disabled people anymore. However, that’s not a suggestion to harm Peter Singer. It’s wrong to kill people, it wouldn’t do the disabled community’s broader situation any good, and it’s not worth getting lost in the criminal justice system. 

Previous articles by Meghan Schrader (Articles Link). 

 

The Myth of a Safe Assisted Suicide Regime.

Alexander Raikin

Alexander Raikin was published by the Wall Street Journal on December 23, 2025 in response to a December 17 letter by Corinne Carey celebrating New York Governor Hochul's decision to sign the New York assisted suicide bill into law. 

Raikin is a visiting fellow in Bioethics at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who has been published by multiple journals and news agencies. Raikin writes.

How humane is assisted suicide? Corinne Carey, from the advocacy group Compassion & Choices, suggests the answer is very (Letters, Dec. 17). New York’s bill places the decision only with a mentally competent patient, and “safeguards are in place to ensure that those who don’t qualify—say, those with eating disorders or psychiatric conditions—couldn’t receive it.”

No need to fear? Not quite.

That’s the same promise Compassion & Choices made in other states before legalization. Three years ago, the organization’s then chief legal advocacy officer—recently promoted to CEO—promised that Colorado’s legislation “does not and was never intended to apply to a person whose only diagnosis is anorexia nervosa.”

But physicians have simply stopped following the law. In at least Oregon, California and Colorado, patients with eating disorders have already qualified and died through assisted suicide. Despite the claim that this is illegal, in Colorado—the sole state to report “malnutrition” as a qualifying illness for assisted suicide—at least 30 MAID deaths between 2017 to 2024 were due to “severe protein calorie malnutrition.” The main lobby group for assisted suicide claims it is illegal to prescribe the “treatment” for eating disorders, and in response, the number of assisted suicides for eating disorders has increased nationwide.

Unfortunately, this follows a larger trend. A Washington state health department report in 2022 found that a third of all relevant physicians in the state failed to submit legally mandated compliance forms for assisted suicide. The result: The state looked hard at the practice, at the assisted-suicide physicians blatantly failing to follow the most minimal of safeguards, and then decided this year to discontinue “suspend” its monitoring program for the procedure.

Previous articles by Alexander Raikin. (Articles Link).

The assisted suicide lobby is promoting suicide tourism.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A recent assisted suicide lobby information article asks the question: Can I travel to use Death with Dignity?

As many of our supporters are aware, Oregon and Vermont expanded their assisted suicide laws by removing the assisted suicide law residency requirement and allowing anyone from anywhere to die by assisted suicide in those states.

The recent assisted suicide lobby article is encouraging people from jurisdictions that prohibit assisted suicide to become suicide tourists and die by assisted suicide in Oregon or Vermont.

The article includes links for out-of-state- residents to contact assisted suicide organizations in Oregon and Vermont as well as contact information for a national organization that will provide advice for suicide tourists.

The assisted suicide lobby is promoting suicide tourism to encourage more out-of-state residents to die by assisted suicide in Oregon and Vermont.

In March 2025 I published an article outlining the Oregon assisted suicide statistics. In 2024 in Oregon there were:

• 607 poison prescriptions written, which was up from 433 in 2022.
• 376 reported assisted suicide deaths up by 71 from 305 in 2022.
• 23 of the 376 reported assisted suicide deaths were out-of-state residents.

In the article I explain that there were likely more assisted suicide deaths in Oregon in 2024 based on Oregon doctors often sending in late reports and possible problems with under-reporting.

Since the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) determines the number of assisted suicide deaths based on the reports they receive, therefore, if a doctor does not submit a report to the OHA there is no way to know if there was an out-of state assisted suicide death. As the 2024 OHA report states:

Previously, residence information was collected from the patient’s death certificate. However, for patients who die outside of Oregon and are not Oregon residents, OHA has no way to obtain notice of those deaths.

Since the OHA does not receive a death certificate for a non-resident assisted suicide death, therefore it cannot be determined if there were only 23 out-of-state residents who died by assisted suicide in Oregon in 2024.

It must be noted that the assisted suicide bill that passed in the New York state Assembly and Senate that has not been signed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, does not have a residency requirement and would allow suicide tourism in New York.

When a person dies without family to take care of a funeral, the state becomes financially responsible for dealing with the body. Suicide tourism would exacerbate this problem.

Contact New York Governor Kathy Hochul (Contact Link) or call her at: 518-474-8390 and urge her to veto the assisted suicide bill and prevent assisted suicide tourism in New York.

Professor of Psychiatry speaks about assisted suicide and suicide.

On Suicide Prevention day (September 10), Professor Mark Komrad, clinical professor of psychiatry from Maryland, was interviewed by Dr Gillian Wright with Our Duty of Care (UK) on the challenges of assisted suicide for psychiatrists as it relates to suicide prevention. What can we learn from the Oregon model of assisted suicide, where the law has expanded and where financial considerations often outweigh ethical concerns, creating a troubling precedent in medical practice? 

(Link to the podcast)

Gillian Wright MD of Our Duty of Care in the UK interviewed Professor Komrad for their podcast.. Topic—why assisted suicide and ordinary suicide can’t be easily separated as two different “types of suicide.” He also discussed flaws in the Oregon law permitting assisted suicide and their subsequent experiences and misadventures. 

Professor Mark Komrad

Professor Komrad was quoted, last week, by a member of the House of Lords in the UK who heard the interview and spoke about it in the House of Lords debate concerning the pending Kim Leadbeater (UK) assisted suicide.  

Listen to this podcast interview, and / or wish share it with your networks: (Link to the podcast)

It's time to audit the death bureaucracy

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate the assisted suicide drug cocktails. (Petition Link).

Last week the Washington Examiner published an editorial opinion calling on the US states that have legalized assisted suicide to audit their death bureaucracy. The article states:

A deeply disturbing investigative report in UnHerd last week uncovered rampant violations of physician-assisted suicide practices in states with the oldest and largest programs. The 11 states that have legalized assisted suicide require clinicians to submit compliance forms shortly after the “patient’s” death. But the chaotic assisted-suicide bureaucracy rarely follows regulations, and clinicians put people to death with little to no oversight.

Between 2009 and 2023, 515 compliance forms and 293 “written request” documents were missing in the state of Washington. In all, one-third of the state’s assisted suicides were improperly reported. In Colorado, which passed its End of Life Options Act in 2016, almost 1,800 compliance forms are missing. And in New Mexico, where annual compliance reporting is also required by law, there has not been a single report issued since assisted suicide was enacted in 2021. For years, the state’s website suggested that a report was “coming soon,” but state officials quietly removed that promise from its website this summer.

Disturbingly, there have been no suspensions or revocations of clinician licenses connected with these irregularities.

Failing to report an assisted suicide is no mere statutory violation. Washington law states medical providers and pharmacists who neglect to “make a good-faith effort to file required documentation in a complete and timely manner” risk losing immunity protection for criminal acts.

The missing compliance reports are only the tip of the iceberg. Officials in Colorado and California were unable to provide numbers for the total assisted suicides carried out by clinicians and held no record of the type of drugs prescribed to more than 1,000 “patients.” Authorities in Oregon don’t know the result of 178 cases from 2024 in which “aid in dying” medications were prescribed.

Did the “patients” take the drugs in those cases? Did those drugs cause death? Did the “patients” even die? Oregon has no records on any of this.

Record keeping in Washington is even worse. By law, the state is supposed to perform a review of reporting compliance each year. But, blaming funding cuts, officials announced that they will no longer issue these legally required reports.

As more and more states consider whether to adopt assisted-suicide laws, a true accounting is needed to provide voters with accurate information about the outcomes of these laws in states where they are already established.

Given the gravity of the new revelations, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, in coordination with the Justice Department, should launch an immediate investigation into states’ assisted-suicide programs. It should focus on three critical areas: the failure to file mandatory compliance forms, inadequate tracking of lethal prescriptions, and the absence of disciplinary action against clinicians who endanger “patients” through noncompliance.

As assisted suicide spreads, the risk grows that vulnerable people, those feeling like burdens or facing financial strain, will be nudged toward death rather than helped to live. This is not compassion — it’s the worst sort of cultural and moral failure.

It is time for accountability.

More articles on this topic:

• How America Abandoned its assisted suicide safeguards (Link).
• Assisted suicide lobby launches court case to force Colorado to permit suicide tourism (Link). 
• The push to legalize and extend assisted suicide in America (Link).
• Oregon 2024 assisted suicide report (Link). 
• Death by assisted suicide is not what you think it is (Link).  
• Assisted suicide laws, once passed will inevitably expand (Link). 
• New York assisted suicide bill is a "bait and switch" (Link). 
• Oregon bill would expand assisted suicide again (Link).