How the Act Works

By Margaret K. Dore, Esq., MBA

The Act has an application process to obtain the lethal drug, which includes a lethal drug request form with two required witnesses.[1] One of the witnesses is allowed to be the patient’s heir who will financially benefit from the patient’s death.[2] 

The Act features patient protections such as a second doctor and a requirement that the patient be capable. These protections, however, are trumped by death certificate requirements and otherwise unenforceable or illusory.

Once the lethal drug is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight.  No doctor or witness is required to be present at the death.  Even if the patient struggled, who would know?

Footnotes:

1.  The form can be viewed in the Act at §3(c), attached here at pages A-7 & A-8.
2.  Id., at page A-8.

In Oregon, Other Suicides Have Increased with Legalization of Assisted Suicide. The Financial and Emotional Cost is "Enormous"

The cost is "enormous."

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

A pdf version can be viewed here and here.

If not rejected, Act 21-577 will legalize physician-assisted suicide in the District of Columbia. The Act is based on a similar law in Oregon, which was enacted in 1997.[1] Since then, there has been a significant increase in other (conventional) suicides in Oregon. This is consistent with a suicide contagion in which the legalization and promotion of assisted suicide has led to an increase in other suicides. A government report from Oregon, which is a smaller population state, says:

The cost of [conventional] suicide is enormous. In 201[2] alone, self-inflicted injury hospitalization charges... exceeded $54 million; and the estimate of total lifetime cost of suicide in Oregon was over $677 million.[2]

"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:

Physician-Assisted Suicide Traumatic for Family Members

By Margaret Dore, Esq.

In 2012, a European research study addressed trauma suffered by persons who witnessed legal assisted suicide in Switzerland.[1] The study found that one out of five family members or friends present at an assisted suicide was traumatized. These people,

experienced full or sub-threshold PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) related to the loss of a close person through assisted suicide.[2]