Wednesday July 3, 2002
90% OF OREGON ASSISTED-SUICIDE PATIENTS CHANGE THEIR MIND SAYS STUDY
WASHINGTON, July 3, 2002 (LSN.ca) - Most people who ask their doctor about assisted suicide are simply depressed or fearful of pain. If properly counselled and treated, 90% choose to continue living, according to a new study of the impact of Oregon's unique 1997 "Death with Dignity Act."
"People usually change their minds," Dr. Susan Tolle, director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University, told Reuters. "The doctors are never taught in medical school what to do, what to say, how to help people with their fears that led to their request," said Tolle, who headed the study. She adds: "The doctor should ask, 'What are you afraid of? What are you worried about?'"
Oregon is the only U.S. state where doctor-assisted suicide is legal, but lethal injection is not allowed. Instead, patients referred for suicide are given a prescription, told an overdose would be fatal, and sent home. Researchers believe 1 percent of patients request doctor-assisted suicide, and of these, one in 10 actually take the prescribed overdose. The researchers said that 25,000 terminally ill patients nation-wide ask their doctors for lethal prescriptions every year.
Non-lethal options include counselling and the widely-neglected pain-relief alternative of palliative care, which is upholds human dignity and respects the gift of life.
To read Reuters coverage see:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/reuters20020702_484.html
For links to pro-life information about assisted suicide see:
http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/
To read the free abstract from the Journal of the American Medical Association see:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/current/abs/jel20002.html
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