Death With Dignity Passed Ten Years Ago This Week

The Oregon Death with Dignity Act turns 10 years old this week, and today Oregon remains the only state to legalize doctor-assisted suicide. Even so, the issue has sparked heated debates around the country in the past decade, and might soon be on the ballot in Washington.

From Oregon Public Broadcasting:

Similar proposals have gone down in every other state that has considered them. But if right to die activists were overly optimistic, dire predictions by opponents of the Oregon law have also proven to be off the mark.

Critics said allowing terminally ill patients to end their own lives would disproportionately affect poor people, the uninsured, minorities, and patients who are mentally impaired. But according to a study this year by University of Utah researcher Margaret Battin there’s no evidence of that.

Margaret Battin: "These very vivid fear mongering claims appear to be without support."

Even so the law has been under almost constant legal attack. Congress debated a change to the federal Controlled Substances Act, to prevent doctors from prescribing lethal drugs for assisted suicide.

In October 1999 Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio railed on his Republican colleagues for trying block a law approved twice at the Oregon ballot.

Peter DeFazio: "These people on this side of the aisle are in favor of states' rights everyday of the week are standing up and saying, we’re for states' rights, as long as we agree with the state...preempting the will of the people of Oregon. It’s not the state of Oregon. It’s the people of the state of Oregon twice by initiative and referendum who passed this law."

Despite recent debates over the law, it appears to be here to stay for the foreseeable future:

The bill never passed under President Clinton. But in 2000, then Texas Governor George W Bush supported the change to the Controlled Substances Act.

George W. Bush: "And to the extent that controlled substances relieve pain, that’s fine. But to the extent that controlled substances take a person’s life, it’s not fine and I would sign that bill."

But President Bush didn’t have to sign a bill. Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a policy directive in 2001 that said physician assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical practice.

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court said Ashcroft overstepped his authority -- a ruling that kept the Oregon law in place. Now, even the law’s most vocal opponent in Oregon -- Dr. Ken Stevens with the group Physician’s for Compassionate Care -- says the best he can hope for is to keep the law from spreading beyond Oregon.

Ken Stevens: "If anything ever changes in Oregon, it will not be in our generation. Oregonians are so independent and we have no plans to try to change it."

Now, one of Oregon's neighboring states appears to be headed towards another debate on the issue. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article focusing on former Washington Governor Booth Gardner, who has Parkinson's disease, and his efforts to get a similar law on the state's ballot:

His controversial and unexpected return to politics after 15 years away from the spotlight was motivated largely by personal experience -- and fear, a flat-out terror of no longer having power over his life.

"I kept thinking, OK, I've got Parkinson's. Next in line is death," he said. "And I'm thinking, who's going to control that? Because if you don't control your life, somebody else does."

Already he has met with several prime sponsors of the 1991 initiative, spoken with legislators about the issue and addressed several community groups. By summer's end, he hopes to have a committee formed that will fan out to start gathering the necessary 224,880 signatures.

Politics, in the end, was the only thing Gardner thinks he was ever good at. So it's fitting, he believes, for a battle at the ballot box to inform what may be his last major effort as a man.

"Maybe it's my ego talking," he said, "but part of me thinks I'm the best spokesman they can get and if I don't do this, no one will."

Read the rest of the OPB and Seattle PI articles.

Discuss.