Deceit was used to convince Oregon voters to approve a physician-assisted suicide measure twenty years ago. Craig New with the Oregon Health Authority admitted their definition of “terminal illness” for patients to qualify was quite different than the voters’. Turns out my son who’s an insulin-dependent diabetic qualifies as terminally ill if he chooses not to take his medicine. There’s little accountability. New says any doctor who declares a patient “terminal” and gets a physician to agree, can prescribe lethal medication, and adds, “The patient gets to decide the part about whether ‘all hope is gone.’” So, with my chronic pain, can I jump aboard the “life-is-no-good-anymore” bandwagon and be declared “terminal” and end my life? This is highly disturbing.
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