Assisted Suicide in Oregon
Mark Shea has a post about efforts to expand the Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) laws in that state. Just one reason for the bill to be voted down: there is word from Oregon that some of those who asked for the lethal dose of pills were being manipulated by adult children wanting their inheritance sooner. Not one of those requesting PAS was evaluated for depression in the latest 2007 statistics. And as to the rest, who knows--the Oregon law does not allow investigation of assisted suicide cases and requires the destruction of all records within a year, so it is nearly impossible to track who is requesting PAS and how people actually died. This next part is horrifying to me, as some of my ancestors were Dutch: In Holland, which is the pioneer of the pro-euthanasia movement, doctors euthanize patients without permission. One physician told how he had killed an elderly nun because he knew that her religious scruples would never have allowed her to request this herself--so he did it for ...