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Right wingers claiming all who use the Oregon law are mentally ill

Mar 23rd, 2011 by

Nine conservative Oregon legislators have introduced legislation
to undermine the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. They want to enact an assumption that any terminally ill patient who requests aid in dying is
mentally unfit.
It is House Bill 2016. (It failed to get out of committee.)
No evidence exists that any patient with impaired judgment has taken
life-ending medication under the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. It is
working as intended, safely delivering choice and control to dying
Oregonians.
Sixty percent of Oregonians voted for the Death with Dignity Act in 1997, and this bill would undermine the will of the people. Current law lets terminally ill patients request aid in dying from their physician without an automatic presumption of mental illness and mental incapacity. Oregon physicians are already required to certify that eligible patients exhibit no signs of depression or psychological disorder causing impaired judgment.
Compassion and Choices of Oregon will vigorously fight this bill.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, death, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Politics/Law, right to die, RTD News, RTD Organizations, Suicide (rational)

One Response to “Right wingers claiming all who use the Oregon law are mentally ill”

  1. ojimon says:
    March 31, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    My mother took her life under the Oregon law three years ago. She followed the law exactly; a month before her death, a prescribing physician certified that she had fewer than six months to live and that she was of sound mind to make this decision for herself. When she exercised her right to die, she was in a great deal of pain and entering the last few weeks of her life, literally drowning in the fluid buildup in her own lungs and gasping for every breath from an oxygen mask. At her request, I went with her to every appointment, and I was with her at the end. The argument that anyone who would want to self-deliver from the sort of pain and fear she was experiencing is “mentally ill” is immoral. There is simply no other word for it. I believe that any bill seeking to deny a person in terminal distress the right to end that distress is immoral. I am desperately disappointed to learn of this development in Oregon. I will do all that I can to support the fight against any attempt to undermine this very important law.

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