Oregon Assisted Suicides Without Symptoms

Here are some more important points in the newly released study, which I discussed more extensively here, that I think deserve special note. It turns out doctors have written lethal prescriptions for patients who weren't yet suffering serious symptoms of their disease:

No physical symptoms experienced at the time of the request were rated higher than 2 on the 1–5 scale. In most cases, future concerns about physical symptoms were rated as more important than physical symptoms present at the time of the request.

Also, I have charged that the Hemlock Society (now called the euphemistic Compassion and Choices) is really in charge of assisted suicide in Oregon, noting for example that it publishes its own statistics. The study authors used the organization to find their interviewees, which confirms my suspicion:

Compassion and Choices, the referring agency for 82% of the participants, identified 180 potentially eligible family members of whom 68 (38%) participated.

What do you think the chances of the mainstream media picking up on these important findings? Yea, slim and none. I'll let you know if I am wrong.

The Abandonment of Assisted Suicide

Assisted suicide advocates, when they are not striving to word engineer through use of the gooey euphemism "physician assisted death (PAD)"--which, alas, has been picked up by some professional journal authors--use scare tactics about unrelievable pain to sell the agenda. Well a new study has come out about what family members of those who died by assisted suicide in Oregon say the reasons were for their loved ones' hastening their deaths. As previous studies have shown, it has very little to do with pain and almost everything to do with fear about future suffering. From the study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine 23(2):154–7 (no link):

Family members describe loved ones who pursue PAD as individuals for whom being independent and in control is important, who anticipate the negative aspects of dying, and who believe that the impending loss of self, abilities, and quality of life will be intolerable. They fear being a burden to others, yet want to die at home. Concerns about what may be experienced in the future, including physical symptoms, were substantially more powerful reasons than what they experienced at the time of the request. Overall, the reasons reported are similar to those reported by hospice workers in Oregon who have cared for patients pursuing PAD2,5 and in a separate qualitative study of family members of patients who pursued assisted suicide outside the law in Washington and Oregon.

This is why assisted suicide constitutes often unintentional abandonment. When someone asks for the pills and their doctor's response is to write the prescription, he or she is confirming their patient's worst fears about being a burden or being less lovable, or dying without dignity. As Kubler Ross noted, people go through a difficult process when they learn they are dying. The very real fears and existential agony often--not always, but often--are transcended. Other studies show that people who wanted to die today are glad one month later they hung around. Hospice professionals will tell you of dying persons claiming that the end phase was one of the best times of their lives that they wouldn't have missed for anything. I have seen that phenomenon myself during my time as a hospice volunteer.

The authors suggest that a good response to a request for assisted suicide is assurance:

Our data suggest that when talking with a patient requesting PAD,clinicians should focus on eliciting and addressing worries and apprehension about the future with the goal of reducing anxiety about the dying process. Some Oregon clinicians have expressed surprise at the paucity of suffering at the time of the request among these patients. Addressing patients’ concerns with concrete interventions that help maintain control, independence and self care, all in the home environment, may be an effective way to address requests for PAD and improve quality of remaining life.

To which I would add, say no to the request--as most doctors in Oregon apparently do. Otherwise, the physician is lending the weight of his or her authority to the burdens felt by the patient. How tragic that people in Oregon who decided on assisted suicide may have cheated themselves out of a time that, for all their fears, they might have ultimatelyu found to be well worth the living.

Oregon Issues Ninth Meaningless Assisted Suicide Report

The Oregon Department of Human Services has issued its ninth, virtually meaningless report on assisted suicide. I say virtually meaningless because it's statistical analysis depends almost entirely on death doctor self-reporting. Little noted in the media, which regurgitates these statistics as if they were empirically valid, there is no independent oversight by the state over assisted suicide, the DHS does not even have the power or budget to investigate potential abuses, and indeed, as the news release that accompanied the statistical report acknowledged, "The role of the DHS is that of a steward of data about the use of the law. This is a law, not a DHS program, and our only legal role is to report accurate aggregate data about the use of the law. It is critical that we have accurate data so that informed ethical, legal, and medical decisions can be made."

So there you have it. DHS bureaucrats are merely stewards of data, not overseers. The DHS merely compiles statistics and only spot checks the accuracy of the data they receive. Not only that, but after the annual reports are published, the DHS destroys the data from which it was compiled, which prevents outside researchers from even verifying the DHS's analysis. Thus, there is no way to know whether these reports are accurate, or instead, whether they are more a matter of garbage in-garbage out.

For a cogent critique of the many failings of "oversite" system in Oregon, see "The Oregon Experience," a fact sheet compiled by theInternational Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.