AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Euthanasia Apologists Mount Campaign to Whitewash Oregon Law.
A New Year's Day article appearing in the Washington Post provides an insightful glance into the themes pro-death forces are using to deflect mounting criticism of Oregon's unique-in-the-nation law that legalizes lethal prescriptions to assist suicide.
The nearly three-page long article praising Oregon's law, written by the Post's Susan Okie, is set against the backdrop of a fierce legal battle being fought in the courts. In a November 6 letter sent to the Drug Enforcement Agency, Attorney General John Ashcroft effectively reversed a 1998 decision by then-Attorney General Janet Reno that prohibited the DEA from enforcing federal drug control laws against doctors who prescribed lethal dosages under cover of Oregon's assisted suicide law.
The state of Oregon, along with the pro-euthanasia organization Compassion in Dying, immediately appealed to U.S. District Judge Robert Jones. On November 20, Jones allowed Oregon's law to remain in effect while he reviews legal briefs from all parties and sorts out the legal issues. NRLC and Oregon RTL filed a "friend-of-the-court brief" which defended Ashcroft's legal reasoning.
According to public opinion polls, sympathy for legalizing assisted suicide is strongest if a patient is suffering untreatable pain. However, modern medicine's ability to control pain is so effective that current pain was not given as a reason by any of those who received legal lethal prescriptions in 2000, the most recent year for which official reports in Oregon are available.
So physician-assisted suicide is now being sold, even more than ever, as a way of asserting control--as an exercise of "autonomy."
"Among people in Oregon who have used the law to end their lives, it appears the most common motive was a desire for autonomy," according to the Post. "Knowing that assisted suicide is an option... seems to comfort some sick people by offering a measure of personal choice ...."
Okie used Richard Holmes, who has received but not yet taken a lethal prescription to make her argument. Holmes' told the Post, "I've lived my life the way I want to. I should die the way I want to." Indeed, Holmes believes this should be the law "in every state in the whole country."
- Eight suicides occur under Oregon law.(assisted suicide law)(Brief Article)
- Magazine article from: The Christian Century September 23, 1998 700+ words
...s first-in-the-nation assisted-suicide law permitting patients to ask...lawyer who helped craft the Oregon law that has twice been approved...report vindicates supporters of assisted suicide. "As we told voters in 1994...
- SUICIDE IN THE WEST.(Oregon law that allows assisted suicide)
- Magazine article from: National Right to Life News Smith, Wesley J. June 9, 1998 700+ words
...pharmacists, acts of assisted suicide will be virtually...organizations favoring assisted suicide, which intend to...information about how the Oregon law is actually working...further the cause of assisted suicide. At the same time...
- Ethicists alarmed at Oregon law: growth of assisted-suicide efforts feared....
- Magazine article from: National Catholic Reporter Gibeau, Dawn December 2, 1994 700+ words
...people, physician-assisted suicide can be challenged...avert physician-assisted suicide, Nelson said...Nelson said, the Oregon law discriminates against...opposes physician-assisted suicide and campaigned against...
- U.S. Judge Lets Oregon Law Stand on Assisted Suicide.
- Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News November 21, 2001 700+ words
...the nation's only assisted suicide law will remain in...medication under the assisted suicide law that voters approved...prescribe drugs under the Oregon law, effectively ending...empt the state's assisted-suicide law. When Ashcroft...
- Court says Ashcroft can't interfere with Oregon law.(Physician-Assisted Suicide)
- Magazine article from: Medicine & Health May 31, 2004 700+ words
...combat drug abuse, not physician-assisted suicide. "The Attorney General's unilateral...democratic debate about physician assisted suicide and far exceeds the scope of his authority...state statute allowing physician-assisted suicide. In the six years the law has been...
- Assisted-suicide movement gets a boost: Judge's ruling upholding an Oregon law...
- Newspaper article from: The Christian Science Monitor April 19, 2002 700+ words
...that prescribing lethal drugs for assisted suicide does not serve a "legitimate medical...Association (which opposes doctor-assisted suicide), found that "among patients who...organization that opposes doctor-assisted suicide. "The problem is depression and...
- Californians Against Assisted Suicide Coalition Members Available for Response...
- News wire article from: The America's Intelligence Wire January 17, 2006 700+ words
...ext. 7, for Californians Against Assisted Suicide; Web: http://www.ca-aas...Advisory: AB 651, a bill to legalize assisted suicide in California, is currently in the...The following Californians Against Assisted Suicide Coalition members are available for...
- Doctor-assisted suicide cases flat.
- Newspaper article from: ORian (Portland, OR) March 10, 2006 700+ words
...request a doctor-assisted suicide after her life expectancy...prescriptions under the Oregon law than end their lives...patients who choose assisted suicide. Although the Oregon law has weathered legal challenges, assisted suicide remains a contentious...
- Supreme Court showdown begins over assisted suicide.
- News wire article from: The America's Intelligence Wire October 5, 2005 700+ words
...charged issue of physician-assisted suicide in a test of the federal...doctors' groups agree that "assisted suicide is `fundamentally incompatible...debate about physician-assisted suicide." The Oregon law is popular in that state...
- Majorities of U.S. Adults Favor Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide by...
- Press release article from: PR Newswire April 27, 2005 700+ words
...allow physician- assisted suicide for terminally...in favor of the Oregon law in 2001. * A 64...right to doctor-assisted suicide." * Most people...LEGALIZING DOCTOR-ASSISTED SUICIDE BASED ON OREGON LAW "There is an Oregon...
Source: HighBeam Research, Euthanasia Apologists Mount Campaign to Whitewash Oregon Law.