New CDC Data Shows Suicide Was Leading Cause of Death Among Oregon Youth in 2018

Note: Oregon's suicide rate began rising after physician-assisted suicide became legal in 1997. This is "the elephant in the living room," not mentioned by the article below. 

To learn more about suicide contagion in Oregon, click here. To view the article below in its entirety, click here. 

Salem, Ore. -- In February the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing that suicide was the leading cause of death among Oregon youth ages 10 to 24 in 2018, up from the second leading cause of death in 2017. Oregon is now ranked 11th highest in the nation for youth suicide death rates (up from 17th in 2017).

Legal Assisted Suicide Encourages Other Suicide

https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article216928250.html 

I am an attorney and president of Choice is an Illusion, a 501(c)(4) non-profit. Formed in 2010, Choice is an Illusion fights against assisted suicide and euthanasia throughout the United States and in other countries.

David Grube’s Aug. 5 guest commentary in The Star said Oregon’s suicide rates “overall have gone down ... since its Death with Dignity Act [legalizing assisted suicide] went into effect in 1997.” I disagree with this claim.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Vital Signs” website, Oregon’s suicide rate went up 28.2 percent from 1999 to 2016. 

Legal assisted suicide encourages other suicide. Don’t be fooled.*

Margaret Dore

*To learn more about suicide contagion, click here.

An Open Letter to the Center for Disease Control

http://www.choiceillusion.org/2018/06/an-open-letter-to-center-for-disease.html

Thank you for your press release regarding increased suicide rates in the US. Please consider the following factors not mentioned in the release.

1. The release discusses rising suicide rates begining in 1999. Oregon's assisted suicide law, legitimizing and encouraging suicide, had gone into effect just two years prior, in late 1997.

Local media then glorified assisted suicide deaths, for example, of Lovelle Svart, who was filmed taking the lethal dose and then dying at a suicide party. Indeed, local media encouraged readers to both listen and watch as Ms. Svart drank the lethal dose.

Oregon Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia Law Applies to Diabetes

The article below leaves out that "diabetes mellitus" (diabetes) is listed in Oregon's annual reports as an "underlying illness" sufficient for death under Oregon's assisted suicide/euthanasia law.

Click here to view a declaration by Oregon doctor, William Toffler, explaining why this is true. Click here to view the report by Fabian Stahle, quoted below.

Diabetics Eligible For Assisted Suicide &  in Oregon, State Official Say 

By Bradford Richardson - The Washington Times - January 11, 2018

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]