“New Scientist” Reporter Goes Over Oregon Assisted Suicide Data With NDY’s Diane Coleman

A newly-published article in New Scientist includes a section in which reporter Clare Wilson reports on actual Oregon data on assisted suicide after a go-through with NDY CEO and founder Diane Coleman. It’s rare – almost unheard of – for a reporter to go into this kind of detail on assisted suicide in Oregon. The same is true of bioethicists weighing in on the topic. Here’s the section of the article dealing with data in “2015 a watershed year for assisted suicide in the US“:

Diane Coleman, head of advocacy group Not Dead Yet, which opposes assisted suicide, says the Oregon Health Authority’s annual reports on the practice show the law there isn’t working as intended. She points to the motives people gave for choosing this option. According to the latest figures, released on 12 February, only a third of people who took a prescribed lethal dose of medication in 2014 cited pain or fear of pain as one of the reasons for doing so.

Supporters of assisted suicide often cite pain as a primary reason why people should have the legal right to die. But the state’s report showed that people’s concerns tended toward loss of autonomy (91 per cent), loss of dignity (71 per cent) or being a burden on their family (40 per cent). Coleman is particularly concerned that people are choosing assisted suicide because they feel they are a burden. “To me that feels more like a duty to die than a choice to die,” she says.

What’s more, according to the data available for Oregon, some people waited longer than six months between asking for the overdose and taking it. It isn’t stated how many times this happened, but at least some people lived a few years after obtaining the drugs. Coleman is concerned that this means people are being accepted for assisted suicide who don’t meet the criteria of havingless than six months to live. “Those people were not actually terminally ill,” she says.

What do the supporters have to say? Not much of substance, really. But please go read the entire article at the source. This is a good article – especially as it pertains to Not Dead Yet. It should be rewarded with a bump in people accessing the article. Please click here to read the entire article.

3 thoughts on ““New Scientist” Reporter Goes Over Oregon Assisted Suicide Data With NDY’s Diane Coleman

  1. Good to see that Diane Coleman made her point and that the author of the article did include the information in her article that suggests that Assisted Suicide is being approved in Oregon for patients who aren’t terminal, i.e. within six months of death.

    We know! because of the trial held in 2014 by HHS/CMS that the definition of terminal will probably be extended under the ACA as more seriously ill patients on the safety nets of Medicare/Medicaid will be refused “curative” treatments under ACA reimbursement protocols and will only be eligible for palliative care/transition to Hospice in the last six months of life.

    PAS is dangerous for the elderly/disabled/poor/mentally ill on Medicare and Medicaid because of the invasion of Big Insurance into the safety nets of the people that has earned them great and RECORD profits because of the lucrative contracts they sign with CMS. .

    PAS will be offered by both Medicare and Medicaid in states where it is legal! How will this not result in tremendous pressure and coercion on these vulnerable populations? ..

    In those States who legalize PAS, PAS is the cheapest, less burdensome, fastest final solution for ALL of the parties involved. That is, Big Insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, the patient, the patient’s family and heirs. The elderly/disabled Medicare/Medicaid patients are already being involuntarily subjected to euthanasia in our nation’s hospitals when the hospitals KNOW there will be no further reimbursement by CMS or Advantage Insurance for any further treatment.

    Isn’t is naive and dangerous for the Disability Community not to understand that it is already about the money and it’s only going to get worse?.

  2. If only you could get hold of emails from the pigs in the health insurance industry as to how much money they save when someone ‘chooses’ to kill themselves!

  3. Edward G. Robinson, American award winning actor, made a movie in his golden years with an unforgettable scene. In it he played a man going into a beautifully designed assisted suicide room. I feel that’s where we are going. Duty to die brought to you by your state.
    We don’t live in the world of “Soylent Green”. Let’s keep it that way.

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