Sunday, January 22, 2017

"Even If a Patient Struggled, Who Would Know?"

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA


The DC Act allows the death by lethal dose to occur in private without supervision.[1] The drugs used are water and alcohol soluble, such that they can be administered to a restrained or sleeping person without consent.[2] Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, puts it this way:
With assisted suicide laws in Washington and Oregon [and with the DC Act], perpetrators can . . . take a “legal” route, by getting an elder to sign a lethal dose request. Once the prescription is filled, there is no supervision over administration. . . . Even if a patient struggled, “who would know?” (Emphasis added).[3]
Footnotes
[2]  The drugs used for assisted suicide in Oregon and Washington include Secobarbital and Pentobarbital (Nembutal), which are water and alcohol soluble, such that they can be injected without consent.  See "Secobarbital Sodium Capsules, Drugs.Com, at http://www.drugs.com/pr/seconal-sodium.html and http://www.drugs.com/pro/nembutal.html  See also Oregon’s government report, page 6, attached to Dr. Toffler's Declaration at A-35 (listing these drugs).
[3]  Alex Schadenberg, Letter to the Editor, “Elder abuse a growing problem,” The Advocate, Official Publication of the Idaho State Bar, October 2010, page 14, available at http://www.margaretdore.com/info/October_Letters.pdf