Oregon published statistics Thursday for the ninth time since voters there approved physician-assisted suicide.
In 2006, physicians prescribed death for 46 people, according to the Oregon Department of Public Health. The numbers are rising.
All told, 292 have killed themselves with the help of doctors since the law took effect in 1998. Nearly 400 others obtained lethal drugs but did not use them -- if you believe the statistics.
But Wesley Smith, who opposes euthanasia, warned that the statistics can't be trusted because they depend on self-reporting by doctors.
"We really don’t know what the numbers are," he added. "They even say that the accuracy of their report depends on the accuracy of the information they receive. And there is no way to investigate if something wrong is taking place."
He said the state's statistics absolutely ignore stories like that of the late Michael Freeland.
"He received a lethal prescription in Oregon almost two years before he died," Smith said. "That would seem to break the law, since only terminally ill individuals with a diagnosis of six months or less are supposed to qualify."
Worse, Freeland became psychotic and was hospitalized before he later died of natural causes.
"The psychiatrist allowed him to keep the lethal prescription, but took away his guns," Smith said. "The only thing the state of Oregon would know is that he died a natural death and was issued a lethal prescription and did not take it."
Smith, meanwhile, said Oregon has been co-opted by the right-to-die movement's terminology.
"They now use the term 'aid-in-dying.' They call physician-assisted suicide, 'physician aid in dying' or PAD -- so physicians now 'induce PAD,' " he said.
"It is playing word games with what is really going on to allow a physician to help kill a patient and pretend that is not what's going on."
Dr. Charles Bentz, president of the Physicians for Compassionate Care Foundation, said pro-death advocates threatened the Department of Human Services with litigation if the state continued to use the word "suicide."
The name change is actually part of the pro-death movement's two-part agenda.
"The first focus is to change the language," Bentz said, "because if they can get the word 'suicide' out of this, it becomes more acceptable. The other thing they want is to get the leading medical associations to take a position of neutrality on assisted suicide."
In fact, that happened on Feb. 14, when the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine announced its board of directors had taken a position of "studied neutrality" on assisted suicide.
Smith is livid at the action.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's an abdication of the leadership responsibility of this professional medical organization," Smith said. "If they had said, 'We support assisted suicide,' then they would have had to justify that. But by saying, 'We're neutral,' they are really saying, 'It's a matter of indifference to us.' I cannot imagine a less professional approach."
Two states, California and Vermont, are considering assisted-suicide legislation based on the Oregon model.
AB 374 would allow doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to California adults diagnosed with less than six months to live. The measure has the support of House Democratic leaders, but has not progressed beyond the committee level.
In the Green Mountain State, a House committee has advanced a bill to the full House to legalize assisted suicide.
TAKE ACTION
If you live in California, please contact your lawmakers and ask them to oppose the assisted-suicide bill. To find out who your lawmakers are -- and for talking points on the legislation -- please see the California Family Council Web site.
(Paid for by Focus on the Family Action)
