No Rush to Doctor-Aided Deaths in Oregon Expected

Although the U.S. Supreme Court finally cleared the way Tuesday for Oregon’s pioneering 1994 law allowing physician-assisted suicide, it is not likely that any patient will get such aid in dying in the three weeks before voters address the issue yet again in a hotly debated November ballot measure.

It may take weeks for the necessary legal documents lifting the existing injunction to wend their way through the various federal and local courts. Also, the law mandates a 15-day waiting period between a patient’s written request for lethal medication and a doctor’s prescribing it.

“It doesn’t look as though we’re going to have anything happen in terms of implementation of physician-assisted suicide prior to the election,” said Kelly Hagan, a Portland attorney who served on the Task Force to Improve the Care of Terminally Ill Oregonians.

Both sides of the emotional question immediately began to jockey to take advantage of the higher court’s refusal to hear a challenge to the 1994 “Death With Dignity” measure, the nation’s only law allowing doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill adults.

Advocates cheered the court for removing an obstacle to enacting the law--and also preempting the opposition’s argument that it was doomed to be struck down. Organized opponents of assisted suicide, who pressed the state Legislature in April to put the measure up for special mail vote Nov. 4, said the court’s decision could work in their favor by lending the referendum extra gravity.

Much of the campaign to repeal the law, which has been blocked by Oregon courts responding to opponents’ suits, is being run by Sacramento political consultant Chuck Cavalier. He directed the ultimately successful campaign against a similar referendum in California in 1992.

The Supreme Court’s decision “intensifies things,” he said. But he added that the implications of Oregon’s looming vote reach beyond the border. “If we’re successful in passing the repeal in Oregon, I think it greatly curtails the spread of assisted suicide” to California and other states, he said.

Recent opinion polls in Oregon show that voters support physician-assisted suicide by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, with only a small fraction undecided. But if the California experience five years ago is any indication--a last-minute ad blitz highlighting possible abuses aroused fears even among favorably disposed voters--support for the controversial practice can be rather “soft.”

Advocates of the practice include Compassion in Dying, an education and support group, Oregon Right to Die, a political action committee, and the Hemlock Society, a pro-suicide organization. Among the opponents are the Committee on the Right to Life and the Oregon Catholic Conference.