Case Study: Oregon Legalized Physician Assisted Suicide

Physician assisted suicide was brought to mainstream attention in the 1990’s due to Dr. Kevorkian’s “suicide machine," who claims to have assisted over 100 suicide deaths of terminally ill patients with Alzheimer’s disease (Dickinson, p. 8). In the early 1990’s, for the first time in United States history the issue was brought to the voting polls in California, Washington, and Oregon (Dickinson, p. 9). The bill was passed in Oregon; legally allowing physicians to facilitate death of the terminally ill, but voters fails to pass the bill in Washington and California (Dickinson, p. 9). In 2008 voters in Washington State passed the Washington Death with Dignity Act (Dickinson, p. 277). Today

Brittany Maynard was one of the people to use the Death with Dignity Act in Organ and once said,“To have control of my own mind…to go with dignity is less terrifying. When I look at both options I have to die, I feel this is far more humane” (Sandeen, 2014). No matter what, we will all eventually die, but we should have the right to die as humanely as possible. The Death with Dignity Act is an end-of-life choice possibility for terminally ill patients to be given the freedom to decide for themselves what it means to die with dignity. This act allows them to die with dignity by providing them with lethal medications prescribed by a physician (The Oregon Department of Human Services, 2006). The Death with Dignity Act started to allow people with six months or less to live, the right to die in a manner and at the time of their own choosing. Also, even though modern medicine has benefited humanity greatly, it cannot completely resolve the suffering and distress that comes with the dying process, so Death with Dignity can provide a painless end-of-life choice for suffering individuals (Humphry, 2009). Although Death with Dignity is a controversial topic I feel it can be very beneficial especially since people go through a long process just to try to get the medication and the ones that get it really need it. I chose this topic because death always has been interesting to me and I one day hope to have a career

Is physician assisted suicide ethically justified? Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is defined as ending one’s own life by taking a fatal dosage of a substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician (MedicineNET.com, 2015). PAS is a very sensitive and controversial topic that raises many moral and ethical questions. While some feel that a person should be able to die with dignity and under their own terms, others feel that this is not a choice we can ethically make. PAS recently made national headlines when Brittany Maynard, a twenty-nine year old woman diagnosed with stage IV glioblastoma, went public with her plan to end her own life under Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act that was passed in 1997. Maynard legally received a prescription from her physician for a lethal dose of barbiturates and decided to end her life own life instead of suffering the painful death that loomed in her near future. She ended her own life on November, 3, 2014 with her family by her side (Durando, 2014). There are many moral issues that surrounded Maynard’s decision and whether or not PAS is ethical, however it is important to understand both sides of the debate to truly get the entire picture of the complexity of this issue before making the determination if physician-assisted suicide is ethically justified.

Kara Tippets, a thirty-eight year old married Christian woman with four children suffered from metastatic breast cancer. Tippets strongly did not believe in assisted dying for many reasons. She slowly started accepting her condition over time and knew that her day of death was coming soon. Since her husband was a pastor, they strongly believed in the Christian way to fully live their lives to the best of their abilities. However, a twenty- nine year old woman named Brittany Maynard did not believe in assisted dying. She was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and decided to end her life before the tumor progressed and before her suffering worsened. Maynard strongly believed in the phrase “death with dignity” and was forced to move to Oregon from California to make physician-assisted dying legal. Only five states made physician-dying legal and California did not make it legal until after Maynard had passed away. Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and California were the other four states that made the procedure legal to any individual. Brittany Maynard had chosen to inject herself with lethal prescription with the assistance of a physician on November 1, 2014 to take her life away, but Kara Tippetts did not agree with her decision.

Gonzales v. Oregon was a case about the Death with Dignity Act passed in Oregon in 1994. The Act made it legal for doctors to prescribe lethal doses of controlled substances to terminally ill patients. The Attorney General claimed the law violated the Controlled Substance Act of 1970. Ashcroft planned to revoke any doctor?s medical license who prescribed lethal doses of controlled substances. Oregon sued Ashcroft and both the district court and the Ninth Circuit court held that Ashcroft was wrong, and the Death with Dignity Act was upheld (Oyez IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2015).

The article “Brittany Maynard Death With Dignity Advocate for ‘Death With Dignity’ Dies” by Catherine E. Shoichet delivers the story of Brittany Maynard. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012 and was told she had from 3-10 years to live. However, in another diagnose that she had she was told she only had about six months to live. Maynard graduated from Berkeley and obtained a Masters in Education from the University of Irvine. She was a California resident and could not obtain her wish of dying with assisted suicide here. She moved to Oregon and there she became a resident. In 2014 Brittany Maynard consumed the drugs and peacefully died at 29 years.

The article “Brittany Maynard Death With Dignity Advocate for ‘Death With Dignity’ Dies” by Catherine E. Shoichet delivers the story of Brittany Maynard. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012 and was told she had from 3-10 years to live. However, in another diagnose that she had she was told she only had about six months to live. Maynard graduated from Berkeley and obtained a Masters in Education from the University of Irvine. She was a California resident and could not obtain her wish of dying with assisted suicide here. She moved to Oregon and there she became a resident. In 2014 Brittany Maynard consumed the drugs and peacefully died at 29 years.

Because her body was young and healthy, she was likely to physically stay alive for a long time, but the cancer was eating her brain which would have caused her to suffer in hospice care for months while her family watched her deteriorate slowly. Even with palliative medication, she could develop morphine-resistant pain and lose her verbal, cognitive, and motor skills at any time. For her, that seemed like a nightmare to put her family through. She wanted to live the rest of the life she had left to the fullest, surrounding herself with family and friends, doing things she had always dreamt of doing and saying goodbye to her loved ones in her own time. Much like Dr. Rimmel, Brittany’s quality of life was critical to her happiness. Because the state of California has not authorized death with dignity. Brittany and her family had to move from their home to Portland, Oregon. Oregon was one of five states where death with dignity is legal.

Brittany Maynard was given six months to live after being diagnosed with the deadliest form of brain cancer; she had recently just turned 29. To make matters worse, doctors had told her she would suffer from the tumor in a slow and painful manner before succumbing to death. Maynard decided she would die on November 1, a few days after her husband’s birthday under physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately, she had to relocate from California, where her friends and family lived, to Oregon in order to fall under the “Die With Dignity” act. According to euthanasia.procon.org, only four states in the whole country have legalized assisted suicide. Unfortunately, there are many like Maynard, who have to relocate and leave their home or go through a long and strenuous court battle to receive this treatment plant. This is due to the disapproval of physician-assisted suicide.

The recent case of a woman, Brittany Maynard, who chose to end her life before she experienced the severe side effects of Glioblastoma has sparked a debate on whether Physician Assisted Suicide should be made legal in all fifty states. Some people believe that Physician Assisted Suicide violates the Hippocratic Oath, gives a doctor too much power, or leaves vulnerable groups at risk. Others feel that Physician Assisted Suicide will benefit the terminally ill. Physician Assisted Suicide will benefit the terminally ill by offering the option to cease their pain and suffering with a painless medication prescribed by a physician when they feel their quality of life has diminished, and is no longer worth living. With this option available, people can exercise their rights over their body and life, die with a sense of dignity, make organs available to patients who need them if it were legal, and it removes the physician from the death directly leaving it to be a personal exit to one’s life.

When death is brought into conversation, most might think of the elderly peacefully passing away in the night or the opposite with horrific accidents where an individual cannot be saved, but very little do people consider individuals who make the choice to end it all. As all should know, this act is called suicide and most have a negative perception of it. But what if it is for the greater good? In one of many cases, California native, Brittany Maynard, made the decision to end her life after suffering through the pain of debilitating headaches caused by brain cancer. Maynard received help in her departure through the use of physician-assisted suicide. The acceptance of this procedure is very limited seeing as though it is only legal in a

Brittany Maynard, a young newlywed, was diagnosed with aggressive and fatal brain cancer. She moved to Oregon with her husband so she could have control at the end of her life under Oregon’s death with dignity law.

In today’s society, suicide, and more controversially, physician assisted suicide, is a hotly debated topic amongst both every day citizens and members of the medical community. The controversial nature of the subject opens up the conversation to scrutinizing the ethics involved. Who can draw the line between morality and immorality on such a delicate subject, between lessening the suffering of a loved one and murder? Is there a moral dissimilarity between letting someone die under your care and killing them? Assuming that PAS suicide is legal under certain circumstances, how stringent need be these circumstances? The patient must be terminally ill to qualify for voluntary physician-assisted suicide, but in the eyes of the non-terminal patients with no physical means to end their life, the ending of their pain through PAS may be worth their death; at what point is the medical staff disregarding a patient’s autonomy? Due to the variability of answers to these questions, the debate over physician-assisted suicide is far from over. However, real life occurrences happen every day outside the realm of debate and rhetoric, and decisions need to be made.

Physician-assisted suicide is suicide that results from a physician’s prescription of lethal medication. It provides information to a patient about how to commit suicide in an effective manner and providing the means necessary for an effective suicide by writing a prescription for a lethal amount of medication. I do agree with the Oregon Model because if a person in Oregon is terminally ill, they have the right to make a decision about ending their own life with physician-assisted suicide. The Oregon Model permits Oregon physicians to prescribe lethal drugs for Oregon adult residents who are terminally ill and who want to end their own lives. In order for a patient to be eligible for such assistance, the attending physician must determine

Brittany Maynard was 29 when she was diagnosed with a malignant terminal brain tumor. Her doctor gave her six months to live. She had the option to undergo full body radiation treatment that would have lengthened her life but would have left her in constant pain while she withered away. She consciously made the decision that she wished to die on her own terms and moved from California to Oregon where physician-assisted suicide has been legalized. In the early morning hours of a chilly November morning, Brittany took a cocktail of drugs prescribed by her physician. She was surrounded by those she loved and died with the dignity that she wanted. Human euthanasia, although controversial, is a humane way to end a person's life, it can be administered voluntary, involuntarily, or passively.