Patient’s Recovery Convinces Oregon Doctor to Fight Euthanasia Laws

For a pdf version, click here, to see article as published, click here.

Kenneth Stevens MD, Jeanette Hall

When American doctor Kenneth Stevens heard about Victoria’s plan to introduce assisted dying for the terminally ill he couldn’t help but recall the story of his ­patient Jeanette Hall.

Hall, then 55, came to Stevens in 2000 after being diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer in Portland, Oregon, a state that in 1997 introduced laws enabling doctors to prescribe fatal pills to the terminally ill.

In Oregon, Other Suicides Have Increased with the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide

By Margaret K. Dore, Esq.

Since the passage of Oregon’s law allowing physician-assisted suicide, other suicides in Oregon have steadily increased. This is consistent with a suicide contagion in which the legalization of physician-assisted suicides has encouraged other suicides. In Oregon, the financial and emotional impacts of suicide on family members and the broader community are devastating and long-lasting.[1]

Police consider charging mother in Bend suicide

Law enforcement officials are investigating a mother’s role in the 2016 suicide of her daughter in a Bend motel room. Police believe probable cause exists to charge Linda Jonsson with second-degree manslaughter.

Sonja Mae Jonsson, 42, of Depoe Bay, committed suicide Aug. 25, swallowing a large quantity of prescription medication. Her mother, Linda Jonsson, 67, had been staying in the room with her and called authorities after her daughter died.

Reporter: 541-633-2162, mhawryluk@bendbulletin.com

See more at: http://www.bendbulletin.com/newsroomstafflist/5356986-151/police-consider-charging-mother-in-bend-suicide#sthash.Xq9XS5M8.dpuf

Nancy Valko on Oregon: What hides in the dark?

"No other area of medical practice-even lethal injection-is allowed such secrecy and immunity." Nancy Valko, RN

"What hides in
 the dark?"

Edited by Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

Note two provisions in Oregon's law:

“The Health Services shall make rules to facilitate the collection of information regarding compliance with ORS 127.800 to 127.897. Except as otherwise required by law, the information collected shall not be a public record and may not be made available for inspection by the public.” (Only an “an annual statistical report of information” is made public.) (Emphasis added.)

And 

“No person shall be subject to civil or criminal liability or professional disciplinary action for participating in good faith compliance with ORS 127.800 to 127.897. ” (Emphasis added.)

There is also no requirement that the doctor or anyone else witness or even be present at the lethal overdose.


But why are the activists and  lawyers who write these laws not challenged when they purposely omit  the stringent documentation and oversight required for any other medical intervention by relying on doctors’ self-reporting the process while also granting these doctors virtual immunity from any legal, civil or professional liability for coercion, complications, abuse etc.?

One answer is that this allows the media and even doctors like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (one of the architects of Obamacare) to declare:

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are increasingly being legalized, remain relatively rare, and primarily involve patients with cancer. Existing data do not indicate widespread abuse of these practices. (Emphasis added).[1]

The second answer is that these provisions allow assisted suicide doctors  (who obviously have more in common with the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian than the iconic Marcus Welby, MD of the 1970s)  to privatize the death and thus prevent any real investigation, followup or even serious medical research as well as allowing the coverup of any problems.

Apparently, nothing can be allowed to interfere with the carefully manufactured image of a kindly doctor helping a patient in excruciating pain to have a quick painless demise.

No other area of medical practice-even lethal injection execution-is allowed such secrecy and immunity.

Nancy Valko, RN

Legislatures and the public need to know and challenge these outrageous provisions as well as being informed about the personal and societal dangers of assisted suicide itself. We must demand truth, transparency and accountability, especially when life and death are at stake.

https://nancyvalko.com/2016/10/05/why-should-physician-assisted-suicide-laws-grant-special-privileges/