The push to legalize and extend assisted suicide in America

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

EPC is very concerned with the threat to legalize assisted suicide in the states of Illinois and New York and the expansion of assisted suicide laws, where it is already legal.

In New York, assisted suicide Bill A136/S138 passed in the New York Assembly by a vote of 81 to 67 on April 29 and may soon be debated in the state Senate. We have urged supporters to contact the members of the New York State Senate and in particular the New York State Senate Health Committee (Link to Senate Health Committee).

In Illinois, assisted suicide Bill SB9 passed on April 9, 2025 by a vote of 8 to 3 in the Senate Executive Committee. Bill SB9 stalled but was renewed when it's sponsor attached the assisted suicide bill to a food preparation safety bill (SB 1950).

On May 29, 2025 SB 1950 passed in the State House by a vote of 63 to 42.

The good news is that SB 1950 has temporarily stalled as the Illinois Senate adjourned.

It is ironic that a bill whereby physicians prescribe a lethal poison cocktails to kill patients would get attached to a food preparation safety bill.

Oregon's assisted suicide expansion Bill SB 1003 will be heard in committee next week. Oregon assisted suicide Bill SB 1003:

1. Requires promotion by Healthcare facilities – The bill forces hospices and hospitals to publicly disclose whether they participate in assisted suicide. Hospices must tell patients upfront and post their policies online, while other healthcare facilities must at least post their stance online. In some cases, family members have pressured vulnerable patients to participate in assisted suicide. This disclosure requirement makes it easier for patients to be directed toward facilities that will not object.
2. Removes the 15-day waiting period – The current waiting period in Oregon to provides a proper evaluation prior to prescribing lethal poison drugs. The bill removes this waiting period allowing patients to be shuffled to death on demand within 48 hours.

The assisted suicide lobby has expanded existing assisted suicide legislation in nearly every state that has legalized assisted suicide. 

Oregon has already allowed physicians to wave the waiting period and Oregon has eliminated the residency requirement. Vermont is permitting assisted suicide by telehealth, they are forcing medical practitioners who oppose assisted suicide to refer patients and they eliminated the residency requirement. Washington state, California, Colorado and Hawaii have also expanded their assisted suicide laws.

Once assisted suicide is legal, the assisted suicide lobby will lobby or launch court cases to expand the law. The original assisted suicide bill is designed to pass in the legislature, once passed incremental extensions will follow.

Oregon 2024 assisted suicide report: Increase in death prescriptions again.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The number of lethal poison prescriptions written under the Oregon assisted suicide law increased in 2024 with 607 prescriptions written, which was up from 566 in 2023 and 433 in 2022.

The 2024 Oregon assisted suicide report indicated that there were 376 reported assisted suicide deaths up by 71 from 305 in 2022. 

Similar to previous years the 2024 report updated the data from the 2023 report. The 2023 report stated that there were 367 reported assisted suicide deaths, but the 2024 report stated that there were 386 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2023. Therefore the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) received 19 assisted suicide death reports from 2023 after the 2023 report was completed.

Since every year late assisted suicide reports are submitted, I predict that there were likely 400 reported Oregon assisted suicide deaths in 2024.

Article: Oregon assisted suicide prescriptions increased by 29% in 2023 (Link).

Dr Sharon Quick

Mike Francis stated for The Lund report on March 27 that:

...opponents point to the steady growth in numbers of people requesting lethal medication — fewer than 100 people a year did so before 2011 — and say the system of physician-assisted suicide does a disservice to patients.

“A death request is often a plea for help, but legalizing assisted suicide may allow an option to die to transform into a duty to die,” said Dr. Sharon Quick, President of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation, in a prepared statement. “No one, including health care professionals, should be given god-like power to decide which vulnerable lives are no longer worthwhile because of the disability of terminal illness or psychological distress over disabilities associated with terminal decline.”

Possible under-reporting of assisted suicide deaths in Oregon

The 2024 Oregon assisted suicide report indicated that the ingestion status was unknown in 178 cases. This means that 178 people who were approved and received the lethal drugs that the OHA does not know how they died. 

• Some of these deaths are "late reported" assisted suicide deaths that will be in the updated data in the 2025 report. 
• Some of these people will die by assisted suicide in 2025. 
• Some of these people will have died a natural death. 
• It is likely, but unknown, because it is not investigated, that some of these people died by assisted suicide but no report was submitted.

Other important data: 

• 43 of the assisted suicide deaths in 2024 were people who received the lethal poison in previous years. 
• Only 3 of the 607 people who were prescribed lethal poison, were referred for a psychiatric assessment.

Complications are only known when a health care provider is present at the death. In 2024 there were 9 known complications based on 121 reports which was down from 10 known complications based on 103 deaths in 2023.

In 2024, the time of death ranged from 7 minutes to 26 hours. In 2023, one person took 137 hours (5 days and 17 hours) to die.

The report indicated that 23 of the 376 reported assisted suicide deaths were out-of-state residents. There could be more than 23 out-of-state assisted suicide deaths. The report included the following disclaimer related to out-of-state assisted suicide deaths.

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.

As with previous years, the report implies that the deaths were voluntary (self-administered), but the information in the report does not address that subject.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown, in July 2019, signing Bill SB 0579 into law to essentially eliminate the 15 day assisted suicide waiting period. This expansion of assisted suicide allows the physician to waive the waiting period, and if the patient is depressed, the patient loses the opportunity to change their mind.

In 2024, in 179 deaths the physician waived the 15 day waiting period which was up from 154 deaths in 2023. In some cases the lethal poison was ingested the day after being first requested.

Oregon is currently debating assisted suicide Bill SB 1003 would expand the Oregon assisted suicide law by:

• allows non physicians, such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners to participate in assisted suicide and,
• reduces the waiting period from 15 days to 48 hours while enabling the "providing prescriber" to waive the waiting period to essentially allow a same day death and,
• requires hospices and hospitals to publicly disclose their assisted suicide policy.

SB 1003, if passed, would be the third time that Oregon would have expanded its assisted suicide law. 

The Oregon Medical Association are against Bill SB 1003. Among other comments, the OMA stated in their intervention that the bill may allow euthanasia: 

Changing the Responsible Clinician from “Attending Physician” to “Provider” 

The bill proposes replacing “attending physician” with “provider,” a term that is overly broad and includes institutions and facilities, not just individual clinicians. Physicians undergo the most extensive and supervised medical training to diagnose, assess patient capacity, and evaluate mental health conditions before prescribing life-ending medication. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act and MAiD must use the highest levels of training for those making these critical determinations. 

Confusing and Potentially Dangerous Language

Certain provisions in SB 1003 suggest that medications intended to shorten the dying process could be administered to the patient rather than by the patient, creating ambiguity and raising concerns about unintended movement toward euthanasia. For example, Section 1(2)(a) states:

“A hospice program shall publicly disclose its current policy regarding the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, including whether a patient receiving services from the hospice program may elect to end the patient’s life…”

This language implies that the hospice program, rather than the patient, plays a role in making the decision, which is inconsistent with the original intent of the law.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has stated that the language of the legislation appears to permit euthanasia. We are thankful that the Oregon Medical Association commented on the same concerns based on the language of the bill.

Oregon assisted suicide expansion bill permits euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Aimee Green that was published in the Oregonian on March 4, 2025 states that Oregon Senate Bill 1003 that would expand the Oregon assisted suicide law appears to lack the necessary support to pass.

On February 12 I published an article explaining that the Oregon assisted suicide Bill SB 1003 would expand the Oregon assisted suicide law by:

• allows non physicians, such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners to participate in assisted suicide and,
• reduces the waiting period from 15 days to 48 hours while enabling the "providing prescriber" to waive the waiting period to essentially allow a same day death and,
• requires hospices and hospitals to publicly disclose their assisted suicide policy.

SB 1003, if passed, would be the third time that Oregon would have expanded its assisted suicide law.

According to Green, SB 1003 appears to lack support. Green reported:

No individual lawmakers have signed on as sponsors of Senate Bill 1003, which was filed by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Only two people spoke in favor of the bill Monday. Eight people spoke in opposition, along with 150 Oregonians who submitted written testimony objecting to the bill.

Jake Thomas reported on March 4 for the Lund Report that Dr Sharon Quick, President of the Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation opposes SB 1003. Thomas stated:

“This bill devalues patients suffering from disabilities, such as mental health problems, lack of capacity, psychological distress over loss of function that will not be uncovered due to inadequate time for assessment,” she said. “Nor is there time for patients to change their minds, which they often do.”

Quick, told the committee the bill would allow non physicians without relevant expertise “to make some of the most difficult medical assessments without a second opinion.”

Quick called on lawmakers to increase access to palliative care, which she said can ease the suffering of terminally ill patients who consider medically assisted dying. Such care would focus on the quality of the patient’s life, including minimizing suffering.

The Oregon Medical Association came out against Bill SB 1003. Among other comments, the OMA stated in their intervention that: 

Changing the Responsible Clinician from “Attending Physician” to “Provider” 

The bill proposes replacing “attending physician” with “provider,” a term that is overly broad and includes institutions and facilities, not just individual clinicians. Physicians undergo the most extensive and supervised medical training to diagnose, assess patient capacity, and evaluate mental health conditions before prescribing life-ending medication. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act and MAiD must use the highest levels of training for those making these critical determinations. 

Confusing and Potentially Dangerous Language

Certain provisions in SB 1003 suggest that medications intended to shorten the dying process could be administered to the patient rather than by the patient, creating ambiguity and raising concerns about unintended movement toward euthanasia. For example, Section 1(2)(a) states: “A hospice program shall publicly disclose its current policy regarding the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, including whether a patient receiving services from the hospice program may elect to end the patient’s life…” This language implies that the hospice program, rather than the patient, plays a role in making the decision, which is inconsistent with the original intent of the law.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has stated that the language of the legislation appears to permit euthanasia. We are thankful that the Oregon Medical Association commented on the same concerns with the loose language of the bill. 

Euthanasia is an act of homicide whereby the medical professional actively kills the patient, whereby assisted suicide is an act of assisting a suicide whereby the medical professional prescribes the patient a poison cocktail for the purpose of suicide.

Oregon bill would expand assisted suicide law again. Non doctors could prescribe death.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Will there ever be enough killing?
Will there ever be enough killers?

On January 30, I published an article concerning Vermont Bill 75 that expands Vermont's assisted suicide law for the third time.

Oregon are also debating a bill to expand their assisted suicide law for the third time. Oregon assisted suicide bill SB 1003 will allow non doctors to prescribe death.

SB 1003 changes the term "attending physician" to "prescribling provider" and "consulting physician" to "consulting provider."

Provider means: 

(a) A physician licensed...,
(b) A physician assistant licensed...,
(c) A nurse practitioner licensed...

Therefore SB 1003 will allow non physicians, such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners to participate in killing.

The weak link for the assisted suicide lobby is that very few doctors are willing to be involved with killing their patients. By adding physician assistants and nurse practitioners they will increase the number of providers who are willing to be involved with killing.

SB 1003 also reduces the waiting period from 15 days to 48 hours while enabling the "providing prescriber" to waive the waiting period to essentially allow a same day death.

SB 1003 also requires hospices and hospitals to publicly disclose their assisted suicide policy. Hospices and other healthcare facilities will be required to inform patients of their assisted suicide policy and post their assisted suicide policy online.

SB 1003 is the third time that Oregon is expanding their assisted suicide law.

In 2019 Oregon passed Bill SB 0579 which allowed doctors to waive the 15 day waiting period. 

In 2023 Oregon passed Bill HB 2279 which removed Oregon's assisted suicide law residency requirement.

The 2023 Oregon assisted suicide report indicates that there were 367 reported assisted suicide deaths up by 21% from 304 in 2022. Will there ever be enough killing?

Oregon assisted suicide poison prescriptions increase by 29% in 2023.

The longest time of death was 137 hours (more than 5.5 days).
The complications rate was almost 10% of the assisted suicide deaths.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The number of lethal poison prescriptions written under the Oregon assisted suicide law increased with 566 lethal poison prescriptions written in 2023 up by 29% from 433 in 2022.

 

The 2023 Oregon assisted suicide report indicates that there were 367 reported assisted suicide deaths up by 21% from 304 in 2022. 

The 2022 Oregon assisted suicide report indicated that there were 278 reported assisted suicide deaths meaning that the Oregon Health Authority received 26 assisted suicide reports after January 20, 2023; the date that the 2022 data was compiled. 

Oregon under reported the number of assisted suicide deaths by 26 in 2022 and corrected it in the 2023 report. I estimate that the 2024 report will say that there had been approximately 400 assisted suicide deaths in 2023.

The 2023 Oregon assisted suicide report indicates that the ingestion status was unknown in 141 cases. This means that the 141 "unknown" people were approved and received the lethal drugs but the Oregon Health Authority does not know how they died. Some of these cases are assisted suicide deaths that will appear in the 2024 report. Some of these people died a natural death and some of these people died by assisted suicide but no report was submitted. 

Other important data is that 30 of the deaths in 2023 were people who received their lethal poison in 2022. Only 3 of the 566 people who were prescribed lethal poison, were referred for a psychiatric assessment. 

Complications are only known when a health care provider is present at the death. There were 10 known complications based on 102 of the deaths, representing almost a 10% complication rate. In 2022 there were 7 known complications based on 76 deaths, representing a 9% complication rate.

The report indicated that 23 of the 367 reported assisted suicide deaths were out-of-state residents. There could be more than 23 out-of-state assisted suicide deaths. The report included the following disclaimer related to out-of-state assisted suicide deaths:

Information on a patient’s state of residence is not collected during the DWDA prescription process. OHA does not receive death certificates from other states unless the decedent was an Oregon resident. Therefore, if an Oregon DWDA patient dies out of state and was not a resident of Oregon, OHA is unlikely to obtain notice of the death. The out-of-state deaths reported in Table 1 thus may not represent all DWDA deaths from out-of-state residents who obtained a DWDA prescription from an Oregon health care provider.

As with previous years, the report implies that the deaths were voluntary (self-administered), but the information in the report does not address that subject.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown, in July 2019, signing Bill SB 0579 into law to essentially eliminate the 15 day assisted suicide waiting period. This expansion of assisted suicide allows the physician to waive the waiting period, and if the patient is depressed, the patient loses the opportunity to change their mind.

 

In 2023, in 154 deaths the physician waived the 15 day waiting period - in some cases the lethal poison was ingested the day after being first requested.

An article by David Jones (ethicist) was published by the British Medical Journal of Medical Ethics on October 27, 2023. In his article Jones examines 25 years of Oregon assisted suicide reports and comments on what is missing in the data. Jones concludes that there are significant data gaps in the Oregon assisted suicide report which was not re-assuring.

The answer is not medically assisted suicide.

This article was published in the Quincy Sun on August 18, 2022.

John Kelly

By John Kelly, Director of the disability rights group Second Thoughts

38 years ago an accident left me paralyzed below my shoulders. My father was brokenhearted and wished I had died instead. His hopelessness about my life, however painful for me, was but a simple reflection of widespread prejudice against disabled people.

A few years after my injury, Jack Kevorkian became a sort of folk hero for “helping” terminally ill people die through his “self deliverance” machine. It later came out that more than two thirds of his clients were not terminal at all, but disabled people, primarily women, in psychological distress.

Over time, as medicine has focused increasingly on patient “quality-of-life” as a barometer of life-worthiness, death has been recharacterized as a benefit to an ill or disabled individual. Most physicians (82%, a Harvard study recently found) view our “quality-of-life” as worse. Disability advocates have raised concerns about the fate of disabled people like Oregonian Sarah McSweeney and Texan Michael Hickson. Both wanted to live, both were loved by family and caregivers, but they died after hospital personnel denied them treatment based on their disabilities.

Over the last 25 years first Oregon, then additional states and Washington DC established assisted suicide programs for people expected to die within six months. Proponent rhetoric has focused on compassion for people’s physical pain and suffering, and the hope of a choiceful, peaceful end.

The reality, as shown by the top five reported “end of life concerns” in Oregon, hinge not on pain, but on people’s “existential distress,” as one study termed it, in reaction to the disabling features of their illness: depending on and feeling like a burden on other people, losing abilities, losing the respect of self and others (“loss of dignity”), and shame over incontinence.

Prominent bioethicist Thaddeus Pope concedes that “Everybody who’s using medical aid in dying is disabled. And probably you could go to the next step and say the reason they want medical aid in dying is because of their disability.” To Pope, any disability a patient finds “personally intolerable” is sufficient reason to assist their suicide.

In Massachusetts, assisted suicide bills have been put forward every session for the last 20 years. Proponents proclaim strong public support for the measure, but that support is shallow. In the weeks leading up to the 2012 ballot question on assisted suicide, polls showed 64% support.* The ballot question lost, 51%-49%. Now supporters say that 77% of Massachusetts residents support the bill, based on a poll question seeking compassion for terminally ill people “to end their suffering,” with its implication of physical pain.

State House Speaker Ron Mariano declared “We have a very divided House of Representatives. There’s not a 77 percent affirmative vote in the House right now.”

With the end of the legislative session on July 31, the bill died.

Disability rights advocates appreciate the willingness of many legislators to take our concerns seriously. We worry, with death reframed as a benefit for severely disabled people, that increased legalization will bring expansion of eligibility. Pope points out that the US is unique in the world for limiting assisted suicide to terminal people, and that every other jurisdiction, including Canada, offers euthanasia on demand to non-dying disabled people. He predicts that non-terminal disabled people will become eligible in the US. In Canada, disabled people have been euthanized because they were denied needed care or couldn’t find safe housing for multiple chemical sensitivities.

There are unsolvable problems with all assisted suicide laws. First, real choice resides with insurers, whose bottom line favors delay or denial of treatment. Dr. Brian Callister reported trying to refer two patients for life-saving but expensive procedures in Oregon and California, only to hear that the insurers limited coverage to hospice and assisted suicide.

Second, when people feel they have lost their dignity and feel like a burden on others, they are vulnerable to pressure and outright coercion to sacrifice themselves for others benefit. Abuse yearly affects one in 10 elders, exacerbated by COVID-19 restrictions. A self-interested heir can push a patient to make the request, serve as a witness along with a “friend,” pick up the drugs and, because no disinterested witness is required at the death, administer the drugs themselves. The law grants immunity to anyone who assists in the death who say they acted “in good faith.” Deadly abuse goes unpunished and unnoticed.

Third, terminal prognoses are notoriously inaccurate. NPR reported a few years ago that nearly one in five people who enter hospice survive the six-month benefit. Oregon revealed last year that just 4% of patients live past six months, meaning that the difference between 4% and almost 20% represents the body count of people who weren’t really dying. People who oppose capital punishment because of the inevitability of executing an innocent person should take note.

The 2012 Massachusetts ballot results and the patient demographics in states like California show there is a social class, race, and ethnicity component in the use of and support for assisted suicide. A 2013 Pew Research Center study showed that Blacks oppose assisted suicide by 65%-29%, and Latinos by 65%-32%. Majority Latino Lawrence voted 69% against the 2012 question, while white working class towns like Taunton and Gardner also opposed. Wealthier, whiter Massachusetts towns voted heavily in favor. In California, 94% of reported assisted suicides have been by non-Hispanic whites, more than twice the group’s share of the state population. Almost no black people have used the program.

The answer is to address people’s real needs. That means a fully funded Medicare home care benefit to reduce burden and keep people out of nursing homes. It means more and better palliative care. And for people whose discomfort cannot be otherwise relieved, there is the option of palliative sedation, whereby a person is sedated to the point of comfort while the dying process takes place. The answer is not medically assisted suicide. We disabled people demand full civil and human rights, equal protection under the law, equal suicide prevention, and more respect throughout society.

John B. Kelly is the director of Second Thoughts MA.
*Note to readers: in the hardcopy version of this essay, John Kelly wrote that polls showed 68% support for the 2012 Ballot Question 2 weeks before the election. The relevant Suffolk University poll, however, taken September 17, 2012, shows that support at 64%. We made the change to the accurate number.

Oregon extends assisted suicide nationally by eliminating residency requirement

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Associated Press reported that Oregon has expanded its state assisted suicide law to permit all Americans to die by assisted suicide by Oregon eliminating its state assisted suicide residency requirement.

In October 2021, Compassion and Choices, an assisted suicide lobby group, and Dr Nicholas Gideones, an assisted suicide prescribing doctor, launched a court case challenging the Oregon assisted suicide residency requirement. The assisted suicide lobby wanted to eliminate the "residency requirement" to allow all Americans to die by assisted suicide in Oregon. The lawsuit was filed in the federal court, claiming that the residency requirement is unconstitutional. (Link to news article).

 

EPC-USA were convinced that the Gideones case could be defeated.

The Associated Press article by Gene Johnson reported that:

Oregon will no longer require people to be residents of the state to use its law allowing terminally ill people to receive lethal medication, after a lawsuit challenged the requirement as unconstitutional.

EPC-USA was concerned that the Oregon government, which is supportive of assisted suicide, would not defend the state assisted suicide residency requirement in court, not because the residency requirement was unconstitutional but for political reasons. Sadly our fears were correct.

Johnson reported for the Associated Press that:

In a settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland on Monday, the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Medical Board agreed to stop enforcing the residency requirement and to ask the Legislature to remove it from the law.

This decision has changed assisted suicide from a state to a national issue since all Americans will be able to die by assisted suicide in Oregon. The assisted suicide lobby announced that they will now pressure other states that have legalized assisted suicide to also eliminate their residency requirements.

This decision also highlights our concerns with the use of telehealth. The assisted suicide lobby wants to approve out of state assisted suicide requests via telehealth and to send the lethal drugs by mail to the out of state requestor.

EPC-USA hopes that a state that opposes assisted suicide will launch a court case to prevent out of state assisted suicide laws from killing their citizens.

This is an historic decision because it extends assisted suicide nationally, including the many states that have strengthened their laws prohibiting assisted suicide.

EPC-USA opposes assisted suicide. These laws give physicians, and in some states nurses, the right to be directly involving with causing the death of another person. This is not an issue of self-killing, which is always a tragedy, but rather these laws enable healthcare workers to have the right to decide who should live and who should die and to prescribe lethal drugs with the intention of causing death.

Oregon 2021 assisted suicide report. Ingestion status unknown with 106 lethal prescriptions.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Oregon 2021 assisted suicide report indicates that there were 238 reported assisted suicide deaths and 383 lethal prescriptions written in 2021.

The number of reported assisted suicide deaths was lower in 2021 but that may be misleading. The 2020 report stated that 245 people reportedly died by assisted suicide and the ingestion status was unknown for 80 people who received lethal drugs. The 2021 report stated that 259 people died by assisted suicide in 2020. Therefore 14 reports from 2020 were received late by the Oregon Health Authority.

Since the 2021 report states that there were 238 reported assisted suicide deaths and the ingestion status is unknown for 106 people who received lethal drugs. Similar to last year people who received lethal drugs died by assisted suicide but the report has not yet been submitted.

As with previous years, the report implies that the deaths were voluntary (self-administered), but the information in the report does not address that subject.

According to the 2021 Oregon assisted suicide report.

• There were 238 reported assisted suicide deaths.
• There were 383 lethal prescriptions written which is up from 373 in 2020.
• 20 of the deaths, the lethal drugs were prescribed in previous years.
• 2 people were referred for a psychiatric evaluation.
• 1 person ingested the assisted suicide drugs but did not die.
  
• 106 people received lethal prescriptions, but their "ingestion" status is unknown. When the ingestion status is unknown, the person may have died by assisted suicide but no report was received as of the time of publishing the report.
  
• The time of death ranged from two minutes to 24 hours, but the data is only available when a health care provider was present.
• 1 physicians was referred to the Oregon Medical Board for failure to comply with the law in 2021.
• Anorexia is now listed as a condition for which assisted suicide is provided.
• As in previous years, the three most frequently reported end-of-life concerns were loss of autonomy (93%), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (92%), and loss of dignity (68%)

• *Order the pamphlet - Shedding light on assisted suicide in America.

Expansion of assisted suicide.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown, in July 2019, signing Bill SB 0579 into law. This bill, essentially, eliminates the 15 day assisted suicide waiting period. This expansion of assisted suicide allows the physician to waive the waiting period, and if the patient is depressed, the patient loses the opportunity to change their mind.

 

In 81 cases the physician waived the 15 day waiting period - in some cases the lethal poison was ingested the day after being first requested.

Assisted suicide drug experimentation.

Assisted suicide activists have been experimenting for several years with lethal drug cocktails on people approved for assisted suicide. An article by Lisa Krieger published by the Medical Xpress on September 8, 2020 uncovers information about the lethal drug experiments:

A little-known secret, not publicized by advocates of aid-in-dying, was that while most deaths were speedy, others were very slow. Some patients lingered for six or nine hours; a few, more than three days. No one knew why, or what needed to change.

"The public thinks that you take a pill and you're done," said Dr. Gary Pasternak, chief medical officer of Mission Hospice in San Mateo. "But it's more complicated than that."

An article published in USA Today in February 2017 examined the experiments  being done on people to find a cheaper lethal drug cocktail for assisted suicide. The article states that assisted suicide researchers are promoting new generations of lethal drug cocktails. The results of the first two lethal drug cocktails were:

The (first) turned out to be too harsh, burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain. The second drug mix, used 67 times, has led to deaths that stretched out hours in some patients — and up to 31 hours in one case.

The 2021 Oregon report emphasizes the use of the fourth generation of lethal drug cocktails show that the length of time to die has reduced but the problems with the use of these lethal drug cocktails continues.

 

Link to video by Dr William Toffler of Oregon on this topic (Link).

 

In December 2017, Fabian Stahle, a Swedish researcher who is concerned about assisted suicide, communicated by email with a representative of the Oregon Health Authority.

• Oregon Health Authority reveals hidden problems with the Oregon assisted suicide law.

Stahle confirmed that the definition of terminal illness, used by the Oregon Health Authority includes people who may become terminally ill if they refuse effective medical treatment.

• Hidden problems with the Oregon assisted suicide law.

The responses to Stahle from the Oregon Health Authority also confirmed that there is no effective oversight of the Oregon assisted suicide law.

 

The yearly Oregon DWD reports are based on data from the physicians who prescribe and carry-out the assisted suicide deaths and the data is not independently verified. 

 

Data concerning complications and length of time of death, etc., can only be verified when a healthcare provider is present at the death. In other words, we don't know if more complications were not reported or if abuse of the law has occurred or if all of the information from these reports is accurate.