Assisted suicide is now legal in Oregon for out-of-state residents and although it's not clear how many out of staters are availing themselves of the opportunity. It seems that interest is growing.
This Daily Mail article provides details. Here are a few excerpts:
Oregon became the first US state to allow physician-assisted suicide in 1997, allowing terminally ill adult Oregonians, with less than six months left to live, to ask doctors for a fatal dose of drugs they then administer themselves, typically at home.How many people have availed themselves of the services of Dr. Gideonse and his colleagues?
Now Oregon has become America's first 'death tourism' destination, where terminally ill people from Texas and other states that have outlawed assisted suicide have started traveling to get their hands on a deadly cocktail of drugs to end their lives.
In the liberal bastion Portland, at least one clinic has started receiving out-of-staters who have less than six months to live and meet the other strict requirements of the state's Death with Dignity (DWD) law.
Dr Nicholas Gideonse, the director of End of Life Choices Oregon, recently told a panel that he was advising terminally ill non-residents on traveling to Oregon to end their lives, despite a legal gray area.
Dr Gideonse ... said he was helping a Texan man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and a hospice patient on the East Coast, but added that there were not yet 'tons of people coming from all over.'
'But for a small number of patients who otherwise qualify or are determined to go through that and who have the energy and the resources … it has started to happen,' he said.
In 2021, the most recent year for which data are available, doctors prescribed 383 fatal drug doses and 238 people ended their lives — mostly white people aged 65 and above suffering from cancer or diseases of the brain or heart.There are a lot more details at the link, including a graphic of the form that must be filled out before one can legally qualify for end of life assistance.
The major ethical concern over the Oregon law, which may soon be adopted by Vermont and other states, is that, although it currently has safeguards that limit suicide assistance to adults who are terminally ill and able to make the decision for themselves, it will gradually expand suicide assistance to include others who are not terminally ill and who perhaps are not able to choose for themselves.
Wesley Smith speaks for many when he expresses concern over the trajectory that assisted suicide laws seem to be on, but assuming that there really are strict safeguards against a slippery slope (I grant that that's a big assumption), do you think it's morally wrong for persons in terrible pain with no plausible hope of recovery, to choose to end their life?
If you do, why do you? If you're a theist who believes in eternal life but you oppose assisted suicide how do you respond to the argument that the patient will be delivered from his or her pain, enjoy a far better existence in heaven, and that we should want that for people, shouldn't we?