Twenty-Three Years Later: Oregon's Death with Dignity Act

By Margaret Dore, Esq.

This article is based on a legal analysis I wrote for a case in South Africa. I hope that you find it helpful. To read my original analysis, please click here, here and here.

I.   OVERVIEW

Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act was passed by a ballot measure in 1994 and went into effect in 1997.[1] The Act had been and is also currently promoted as a type of voluntary physician-assisted suicide.[2] The Act, in fact, also allows euthanasia, on both a voluntary and involuntary basis. 

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.