The Right to Death with Dignity
On October 27, 1997, Oregon enacted the Death with Dignity Act that gives terminally-ill Oregonians the right to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, especially prescribed for them by a physician for that purpose. In 2008, 88 prescriptions were written for lethal medications under the Death with Dignity Act, compared to 85 for 2007. Of these 88 prescriptions, 54 terminally ill patients took the medication, 22 people died of their underlying disease, and 12 of the patients who had received a prescription for lethal medications were still alive at the end of 2008. In addition, six patients who had received prescriptions before 1988 died from taking the medications, resulting in a total of 60 deaths under the Death with Dignity Act for 2008.
Since Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1997, 401 patients have died under the terms of the law. The majority of people requesting lethal medications were between 55 and 84 years of age (78%), white (98%), well-educated (60% had at least a BA degree), and were more likely to have cancer (80%). Most of the patients died at home (97%), and the number of patients that were enrolled in hospice care (98%) was much greater than in previous years.
As in previous years, the most frequently mentioned end-of-life concerns were: loss of autonomy (95%), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (92%), and loss of dignity (92%).
Opponents of Death-with-Dignity laws argue that such laws will be abused, and the elderly will be persuaded to make the decision to take their lives by greedy children who can’t wait to receive their inheritance. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act has been in force more than 10 years, but unlike the flood of requests and abuses feared by opponents to the law, it is relatively seldom used and only in the most dire circumstances. If our bodies are being ravaged by disease, and we are in pain, unable to engage in our favorite activities, and lose control of our bodily functions, we should all have the right to go peacefully into that dark night (with apologies to Dylan Thomas).
But we should not be influenced to make the decision to end our lives by pressure put on us by children who want their inheritance or who see caring for the elderly to be an burdensome chore they would gladly get rid of. Sometimes the burden of a child caring for an elderly person can be alleviated by putting the elderly person in an assisted-living facility. If the elderly person does not want to be “put in a home,” his or her children should look into elder care services available in the area or, if the elderly person is living with a child, the child should look into part-time nursing help to assist in the management of the elder and give the caretaker child some well-needed time off from caring for the elderly parent.
We have no say in the circumstances of our birth, but we should be allowed to direct the way we leave this world when our time has come. In the other 49 states that do not have Death with Dignity Acts, it is not unusual to hear of an elderly couple who have agreed to end their lives by having the elderly husband shoot the wife and then himself, in a murder-suicide. It is outrageous that in our civilized country all of the states do not allow for death with dignity. And if you’re planning on making a trip to Oregon to get a prescription for lethal drugs, forget it. You have to be a resident of Oregon to qualify under the terms of the Death with Dignity Act in 2008.
Write your legislators, both state and federal, voicing your support for a Death with Dignity Act. We should have the right to exit this world on our own terms as peacefully as possible, and Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act is a model that all other states should follow. It is not being abused, and it is not physician-assisted suicide. The doctor merely writes you a prescription for the lethal medications, and it is up to you (or your spouse or significant other) to go to the pharmacy and get the drugs. You then have the freedom to take the medication when you feel your time has come and the burden of suffering with a terminal illness outweighs any joy you get from life.
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