8 Deaths Linked to Oregon Suicide Law

Eight people have died in Oregon with help from doctors since the nation’s only assisted-suicide law took effect last fall, state officials announced Tuesday.

The Oregon Health Division on Tuesday released its first figures on deaths under the law, which was initially approved by Oregon voters in 1994 and reaffirmed at the ballot box last November.

The law allows a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to hasten the death of a terminally ill patient.

Doctors prescribed lethal drugs to 10 patients under the Oregon law, but two died from their illnesses without using the drugs, said Dr. Katrina Hedberg, an Oregon Health Division epidemiologist.

The law took effect last October, the month after supporters won a long federal court battle. The law has also withstood opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, the American Medical Assn. and Congress.

“Only eight Oregonians in nearly 10 months have taken the medication to end their suffering, and all of them were older patients facing difficult deaths,” said Barbara Coombs Lee, an Oregon nurse who led the campaign to enact the law. She said the statistics show that opponents’ fears that the law would be abused were unfounded.

She also noted that nine of the patients were dying of cancer and one suffered from heart problems, and the average age of the 10 was 71.

But a spokesman for the Catholic Church called the announcement “tragic” and accused the nine doctors involved of killing their patients “in violation of medical ethics.”

“I’m terribly saddened,” said Bob Castagna, executive director of the Oregon Catholic Conference. “We pray for the souls of the deceased. We also pray for the physicians and others who assisted in these suicides that they may reconsider their professional ethics.”

A federal judge in Oregon ruled the law unconstitutional in 1995, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision last year and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) could block the Oregon law by prohibiting doctors from prescribing drugs for the purpose of assisting suicide.

The state said the 10 people who were given lethal prescriptions were evenly divided between men and women.

The patients took the lethal drugs anywhere from the same day they obtained them to 16 days later.