Study Shows Oregon Assisted Suicides Not Result of Pain or Suffering.

Those whose suicides are assisted by doctors under Oregon's law that legalized the practice are not experiencing significant suffering or pain at the time of their self-inflicted deaths, according to a major study in a February issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Instead, they are largely motivated by fear of what could occur in the future.

Contemporaneously, the state's Department of Human Services issued its official report on the 49 individuals who died from legal lethal prescriptions in 2007 (the highest annual total yet) and the 13 additional people who were given lethal doses but who had not yet taken them at year's end (also the highest annual total). The study revealed that not a single person who requested assisted suicide was referred for a psychiatric evaluation.

This is significant for two reasons. Oregon's "Death with Dignity Act" requires doctors to order such an exam if they believe a patient's judgment might be psychiatrically or psychologically impaired. The number of patients referred for psychiatric evaluations has steadily declined each year the law has been in effect. Second, clinical depression is the number one cause of suicide.

Oregon is the only state to legalize assisted suicide. Since the act took effect in late 1997, 341 assisted suicide deaths have been recorded.

The medical journal study, whose lead author was Dr. Linda Ganzini, surveyed family members of 83 Oregon residents who requested physician-assisted suicide. Family members were asked to rate the importance of 28 possible reasons their loved ones requested assisted suicide on a 15 scale, with higher scores signaling greater weight.

Not one of those surveyed ranked physical symptoms at the time of the request any higher than a 2. Instead, the most important reasons (ranking 4 or higher) were wanting to control circumstances of death, fear of poor quality of life in future, loss of ...