Senator Jim Shockley Published in the Montana Lawyer

"No, physician-assisted suicide is not legal in Montana:

 It's a recipe for elder abuse and more".[1] 

By State Senator Jim Shockley and Margaret Dore
Published in The Montana Lawyer
The State Bar of Montana

There are two states where physician-assisted suicide is legal: Oregon and Washington.  These states have statutes that  give doctors and others who participate in a qualified patient’s suicide immunity from criminal and civil liability.  (ORS 127.800-995 and RCW 70.245). 

In Montana, by contrast, the law on assisted suicide is governed by the Montana Supreme Court decision, Baxter v. State, 354 Mont. 234 (2009).  Baxter gives doctors who assist a patient’s suicide a potential defense to criminal prosecution.  Baxter does not legalize assisted suicide by giving doctors or anyone else immunity from criminal and civil liability.  Under Baxter, a doctor cannot be assured that a suicide will qualify for the defense.  Some assisted suicide proponents nonetheless claim that Baxter has legalized assisted suicide in Montana.

Legalizing assisted suicide in Montana would be a recipe for elder abuse.  The practice has multiple other problems.

What is physician-assisted suicide?

The American Medical Association (AMA) states: “Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act.”  (Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 2.211).  For example, a “physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, while aware that the patient may commit suicide.”  (Id.)

The Baxter decision

Baxter found that there was no indication in Montana law that physician-assisted suicide, which the Court termed “aid in dying,” is against public policy.  (354 Mont. at 240, ¶¶ 13, 49-50).  Based on this finding, the Court held that a patient’s consent to aid in dying “constitutes a statutory defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician.”  (Id. at 251, ¶ 50).

Baxter, however, overlooked elder abuse.  The Court stated that the only person “who might conceivably be prosecuted for criminal behavior is the physician who prescribes a lethal dose of medication.”  (354 Mont. at 239, ¶ 11).  The Court thereby overlooked criminal behavior by family members and others who benefit from a patient’s death, for example, due to an inheritance.

Baxter also overlooked caselaw imposing civil liability on persons who cause or fail to prevent a suicide.  See Krieg v. Massey, 239 Mont. 469, 472-3 (1989) and Nelson v. Driscoll, 295 Mont. 363, ¶¶ 32-33 (1999).  Baxter is, regardless, a narrow decision in which doctors cannot be assured that a suicide will qualify for the defense.  Attorneys Greg Jackson and Matt Bowman provide this analysis:

If the idea of suicide itself is suggested to the patient first by the doctor or even by the family, instead of being on the patient's sole initiative, the situation exceeds "aid in dying" as conceived by the Court.  If a particular suicide decision process is anything but "private, civil, and compassionate," . . . , the Court's decision wouldn't guarantee a consent defense.  If the patient is less than "conscious," is unable to "vocalize" his decision, or gets help because he is unable to "self-administer," or the drug fails and someone helps complete the killing, Baxter would not apply. . . .

No doctor can prevent these human contingencies from occurring in a given case . . . in order to make sure that he can later use the consent defense if he is charged with murder.

“Analysis of Implications of the Baxter Case on Potential Criminal Liability,” Spring 2010, at  http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/p/baxter-case-analysis.html


The 2011 Legislative Session

The 2011 legislative session featured two bills in response to Baxter, both of which failed: SB 116, which would have eliminated Baxter’s potential defense; and SB 167, which would have legalized assisted suicide by providing doctors and others with immunity from criminal and civil liability.

During a hearing on SB 167, the bill's sponsor, Senator Anders Blewett, said:  “[U]nder current law, ... there’s nothing to protect the doctor from prosecution.”  ( http://maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/blewett_speckhart_trans_001.pdf ).  Dr. Stephen Speckart made a similar statement: "[M]ost physicians feel significant dis-ease with the limited safeguards and possible risk of criminal prosecution after the Baxter decision."  (Id. at p.2)

Legalization would create new paths of abuse

In Montana, there has been a rapid growth of elder abuse.  Elders' vulnerabilities and larger net worth make them a target for financial abuse.  The perpetrators are often family members motivated by an inheritance.  See e.g.  www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/studies/mmi-study-broken-trust-elders-family-finances.pdf .

Preventing elder abuse is official Montana state policy.  See e.g., 52-3-801, MCA.  If Montana would legalize physician-assisted suicide, a new path of abuse would be created against the elderly, which would be contrary to that policy.  Alex Schadenberg, Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, International, states:

With assisted suicide laws in Washington and Oregon, 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 the administration. . . . [E]ven if a patient struggled, “who would know?

http://www.isb.idaho.gov/pdf/advocate/issues/adv10oct.pdf, p. 14.

“Terminally Ill” Does Not Mean Dying

Baxter’s potential defense applies when patients are "terminally ill," which Baxter does not define.  In Oregon, “terminal” patients are defined as those having less than six months to live.  Such persons are not necessarily dying.  Doctors can be wrong.  Moreover, treatment can lead to recovery.  Oregon resident, Jeanette Hall, who was diagnosed with cancer and told that she had six months to a year to live, said:

I wanted to do our [assisted suicide] law and I wanted my doctor to help me.  Instead, he encouraged me to not give up . . .  I had both chemotherapy and radiation. . . .

It is now 10 years later.  If my doctor had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead. 

http://mtstandard.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_aeef3982-9a98-11df-8db2-001cc4c002e0.html 

Legal physician-assisted suicide empowered the Oregon Health Plan, not individual patients 

Once a patient is labeled “terminal,” an easy argument can be made that his or her treatment should be denied.  This has happened in Oregon where patients labeled “terminal” have not only been denied coverage for treatment, they have been offered assisted-suicide instead.

The most well known cases involve Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup.  (KATU TV, at http://www.katu.com/news/26119539.html , ABC News, at http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=5517492  Ken Stevens, MD, at pp. 16-17, at http://choiceillusionoregon.blogspot.com/p/oregons-mistake-costs-lives.html).  The Oregon Health Plan refused to pay for their desired treatments and offered to pay for their suicides instead.  Neither Wagner nor Stroup saw this as a celebration of their “choice.”  Wagner said: “I’m not ready to die.”  Stroup said: “This is my life they’re playing with.”
            
Stroup and Wagner were steered to suicide and it was the Oregon Health Plan doing the steering.  Oregon’s law empowered the Oregon Health Plan, not individual patients.

Oregon’s studies are invalid

Oregon’s statute does not require a doctor to be present when the lethal dose is administered.  (ORS 127.800-995).  During a hearing on SB 167, Senator Jeff Essmann made a related point, as follows:

[A]ll the protections [in Oregon’s law] end after the prescription is written.  [The proponents] admitted that the provisions in the Oregon law would permit one person to be alone in that room with the patient.  And in that situation, there is no guarantee that that medication is self-administered.

So frankly, any of the studies that come out of the state of Oregon’s experience are invalid because no one who administers that drug . . . to that patient is going to be turning themselves in for the commission of a homicide.

Senate Judiciary Hearing Transcript, February 10, 2011, p.15, at http://www.margaretdore.com/pdf/senator_essmann_sb_167_001.pdf

Public confusion

In Montana, the moving force behind legalizing assisted suicide is Denver-based Compassion & Choices.  On September 15, 2011, that organization’s president published an article on Huffington Post claiming that under Baxter physicians in Montana are “safe from prosecution.”  ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-coombs-lee/aid-in-dying-montana_b_960555.html )  This is clearly not the case and  propaganda.  A physician relying on her advice could be charged with homicide.

Conclusion  

Baxter is a flawed decision that overlooked elder abuse.  Baxter has created confusion in the law, which has put Montana citizens at risk.  Neither the legal profession nor the medical profession has the necessary guidance to know what is lawful. 


Legalizing assisted suicide is bad public policy.  Doctors’ diagnoses can be wrong and legalization is a recipe for abuse.  Legalization would also allow the state government to encourage citizens to kill themselves.  This is an area where the government does not belong.  Montana consistently has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.   Montana doesn’t need the “Oregon Experience.”


Legislation should be enacted to overrule Baxter and clearly declare that assisted suicide is not legal in Montana.  
      

* * *

Senator Jim Shockley, of Victor, is a Republican State Senator, probate lawyer, and an adjunct instructor at the University of Montana School of Law. 

Margaret Dore is an attorney in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.  She is also President of Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation opposed to assisted-suicide.  (www.choiceillusion.org)  She is a Democrat.  

* * *

[1] To read this article as published in The Montana Lawyer and the opposing article by Senator Anders Blewett, go here:

http://www.montanabar.org/associations/7121/November%202011%20mt%20lawyer.pdf                                                                                                  

Compassion & Choices of WA Embraces Derek Humphry

Just in from Washington State:

Compassion & Choices of Washington has announced that Derek Humphry will be the keynote speaker at its 2011 annual meeting.[1]

Derek Humphry has recently been in the news as a promoter of suicide kits from a company now shut down by the FBI.  According to an article in Oregon's Register-Guard newspaper:

"A spotlight was cast on the mail-order suicide kit business after a 29-year-old Eugene man committed suicide in December using a helium hood kit. The Register-Guard traced the $60 kit to [the company, which] has no website and does no advertising; clients find [the] address through the writings of Humphry."[2]

With the choice of Humphry as its keynote speaker, Compassion & Choices shows its true colors?

* * *

[1]  See current newsletter for Compassion & Choices of Washington, stating :  "Derek Humphry to be Keynote Speaker at 2011 Annual Meeting."  To view the newsletter, go to the following link and scroll down to the lower half of the page:  http://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/derek.pdf
[2]  See e.g., Jack Moran, "Police kick in door in confusion over suicide kit:  The FBI message to police about the purchase of the gear failed to mention it was bought seven months ago, "  The Register-Guard, September 21, 2011.

Propaganda About Montana: Baxter & Assisted Suicide

By Margaret Dore, Esq.

Barbara Coombs Lee, President of Compassion & Choices, has posted a propaganda piece on Huffington Post falsely claiming that a physician who assists a suicide in Montana is "safe" from prosecution.  My request for equal time to correct the record on Huffington Post has been ignored.  A discussion of the actual law of Montana is set forth below. 

A.  Assisted Suicide

There are just two states where physician-assisted suicide is legal: Oregon and Washington.  These states have statutes that give doctors and others who participate in a qualified patient’s suicide, immunity from criminal and civil liability.  (ORS 127.800-995 and RCW 70.245). 

In Montana, by contrast, the law on assisted suicide is governed by the Montana Supreme Court decision, Baxter v. State, 354 Mont. 234 (2009).  Baxter gives doctors who assist a suicide a potential defense to criminal prosecution.  Baxter does not legalize assisted suicide by giving doctors or anyone else immunity from criminal and civil liability.  Under Baxter, a doctor cannot be assured that a particular suicide will qualify for the defense. 

B.  The Baxter Decision is Wrong

Baxter found that there was no indication in Montana law that physician-assisted suicide, which the Court termed “aid in dying,” is against public policy.  (354 Mont. at 240, ¶¶ 13, 49-50).  Based on this finding, the Court held that a patient’s consent to assisted suicide “constitutes a statutory defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician.”  (Id. at 251, ¶ 50).

Baxter, however, overlooked caselaw imposing civil liability on persons who cause or fail to prevent a suicide.  See e.g., Krieg v. Massey, 239 Mont. 469, 472-3 (1989) and Nelson v. Driscoll, 295 Mont. 363, ¶¶ 32-33 (1999).  Baxter also overlooked elder abuse.  The Court stated that the only person “who might conceivably be prosecuted for criminal behavior is the physician who prescribes a lethal dose of medication.”  (354 Mont. at 239, ¶ 11).  The Court thereby overlooked criminal behavior by family members and others who benefit from a patient’s death, for example, due to an inheritance.

The Baxter decision is fundamentally flawed and wrong.

C.  Doctors are not "Safe" Under Baxter

Baxter is a narrow decision via which doctors cannot be assured that a particular suicide will qualify for the defense. Attorneys Greg Jackson and Matt Bowman provide this analysis:

"If the patient is less than 'conscious,' is unable to 'vocalize' his decision, or gets help because he is unable to 'self-administer,' or the drug fails and someone helps complete the killing, Baxter would not apply. . . .

http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/p/baxter-case-analysis.html

Even if a doctor "beats the rap" on prosecution, there is the issue of civil liability.  See Krieg and Nelson, supra.  Like O.J. Simpson, a doctor who escapes criminal liability could find himself sued by a family member upset that he "killed mom."  The doctor could be held liable for civil damages.

* * *

Margaret Dore is President of Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation opposed to assisted-suicide. (www.choiceillusion.org)  She is also an attorney in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.

* * *

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-coombs-lee/aid-in-dying-montana_b_960555.html 

Barbara Coombs Lee Renews Plea to Eliminate Oregon Reporting Consistent with Elder Abuse

By Margaret Dore

Today, Barbara Coombs Lee, President of Compassion & Choices, published a blog on Huffington Post arguing that reporting for Oregon's assisted suicide act is no longer needed.[1]  This is the same claim that Compassion & Choices made in Montana before its proposed bill to legalize assisted suicide was defeated last February.

The reporting in question is consistent with elder abuse, i.e., of people with money.  This quote is from my memo against Compassion & Choices' bill, SB 167:

"Doctor reporting is . . . eliminated.¹  The former Hemlock Society, Compassion & Choices, claims that this is because Oregon’s reporting system has “demonstrated the safety of the practice.”²  To the contrary, Oregon’s reports support that the claimed safety is speculative.  The reported statistics are also consistent with elder abuse.  No wonder Compassion & Choices wants the reporting system gone."

To view the entire memo, click here. 

Washington State: "Hear No Evil, See No Evil"

Dear Editor:

Margaret K. Dore's article regarding Washington's assisted suicide law [Bar Bulletin, July] highlights a troubling disconnect between this statute and the commendable trend in Washington law to recognize and protect elders from abuse.

On the one hand, the Slayer's Statute, RCW 11.84, was recently amended to penalize heirs who financially exploit a vulnerable adult. On the other hand, safeguards for assisted suicide are minimal, far less than the standards demanded for executing a valid will. As Ms. Dore points out, record-keeping by the state appears to consist of the "hear-no-evil, see-no-evil" variety.

Theresa Schrempp
Sonkin & Schrempp, PLLC

To view Dore's article, "Assisted-Suicide Report Lacks Information about Consent, click here.

To view Washington's official report, click here.

To view the above letter, go here (the link may not work for non-bar members):  https://www.kcba.org/newsevents/barbulletin/BView.aspx?Month=09&Year=2011&AID=letters.htm

The Emperor Has No Clothes: "VSED"

Compassion & Choices, the Denver-based organization behind the push to legalize assisted suicide in Montana, has a new campaign.  They call it VSED: "Voluntarily" stopping eating and drinking.  Below, Kate Kelly provides a real life example: "I watched her suffer." 

______________________________________________

Mild stroke led to mother's forced starvation 
 

By Kate Kelly

I watched an old woman die of hunger and thirst.  She had Alzheimer's, this old woman, and was child-like, trusting, vulnerable, with a child's delight at treats of chocolate and ice cream, and a child's fear and frustration when tired or ill.

I watched her die for six days and nights.

Senator Blewett's Statements Concede That Assisted Suicide is Not Legal in Montana

Health care:  State doesn't need legal suicide,
Published in the Missoulian, Wednesday, June 15, 2011 8:45 am

I am amazed with the letter by Sen. Anders Blewett claiming that doctors can't be convicted of homicide if they cause or assist a suicide in Montana ("Physician aid in dying: Bill's rejection a step forward," June 10). His bill, Senate Bill 167, which would have accomplished that goal, was defeated this last legislative session.

Blewett's current claim is also the exact opposite of what he said when he was trying to get his bill passed. I have transcripts from the hearings on SB167. Blewett's quotes include: "under the current law ... there's nothing to protect the doctor from prosecution." Similar statements were made by others. For example, Dr. Stephen Speckart testified: "most physicians feel significant dis-ease with the limited safeguards and possible risk of criminal prosecution after the Baxter decision." 

To view transcript excerpts, go here: http://maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/blewett_speckhart_trans_001.pdf

Blewett's current claim is also contrary to the analysis of Montana attorney Greg Jackson, who with attorney Matt Bowman, states: "The Montana Supreme Court's assisted suicide decision ... didn't even 'legalize' assisted suicide ... After Baxter, assisted suicide continues to carry both criminal and civil liability risks for any doctor, institution, or lay person involved."  http://montanansagainstassistedsuicide.blogspot.com/p/baxter-case-analysis.html 

Blewett's bill, SB167, was defeated because it was a doctor-protection bill at the expense of individual patient rights. Legal assisted suicide is also a recipe for elder abuse in which heirs and others are empowered to pressure and abuse older people to cut short their lives. In Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, patients desiring treatment have been offered assisted suicide instead. With the gaps in that law, patients are also unprotected from someone administering the lethal dose to them against their will.

Assisted suicide is not legal in Montana. Let's keep it that way.

Sen. Greg Hinkle, Thompson Falls

Legal Analysis of SB 167

In the 2011 Legislative Session, Senator Anders Blewett sponsored SB 167, which would have legalized Oregon-style assisted suicide in Montana.  The bill failed in Committee the day after it was heard.  To read an analysis of that bill, go here.

Assisted Suicide is not Legal in Montana

Assisted Suicide: Not Legal in Montana;

 A Recipe for Elder Abuse and More

By Margaret Dore, July 15, 2011*

A. Introduction

 Proponents claim that physician-assisted suicide is legal in Montana. This is untrue. A bill that would have accomplished that goal was defeated in the 2011 legislature.

Legal physician-assisted suicide is, regardless, a recipe for elder abuse. It empowers heirs and others at the expense of older people.  In Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, legalization has empowered the Oregon Health Plan to steer patients to suicide.  There are multiple other problems.

B. What is Physician-Assisted Suicide?

 The American Medical Association (AMA) states: "Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act." (AMA Code of Medical Ethics, Opinion 2.211). For example, a "physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, while aware that the patient may commit suicide." Id.

 The AMA rejects physician-assisted suicide. Id. Assisted suicide is also opposed by disability rights groups such as the Disability Rights and Education Defense Fund, and Not Dead Yet.

C.  Most States do not Allow Physician-Assisted Suicide

There are just two states where physician-assisted suicide is legal:  Oregon and Washington.  These states have statutes that give doctors and others immunity from criminal and civil liability arising out of a patient's suicide (euphemistically termed "death with dignity").  See e.g. RCW 70.245.190(1)(a).  These statutes were passed via ballot initiatives.  No such law has ever made it through the scrutiny of a legislature.

D.  Current Montana Law

Under current Montana law, assisting a suicide exposes the assister to civil and criminal liability. Doctors and others can be held civilly liable for: (1) causing another to commit suicide; or (2) failing to prevent a suicide in a custodial situation where the suicide is foreseeable.[1]  This latter situation would typically occur in a hospital or prison.[2]  Those who assist a suicide can also be prosecuted for homicide under Mont. Code Ann. § 45-5-102(1).  Doctors, however, have the right to assert an affirmative defense based on the victim’s consent and other factors. This is due to the Montana Supreme Court decision, Baxter v. State, 354 Mont. 234, ¶¶ 10 & 50, 224 P.3d 1211 (2009).[3]

E. The 2011 Legislative Session

 The 2011 legislative session featured two bills in response to Baxter, both of which failed: SB 116, which would have eliminated Baxter’s affirmative defense; and SB 167, which would have legalized assisted suicide by providing doctors and others with immunity from civil and criminal liability.

During a hearing on SB 167, the bill's sponsor, Senator Anders Blewett, said: "[U]nder current law, .　.　. there’s nothing to protect the doctor from prosecution."[4]

F. Legalization Will Create New Paths of Abuse

In Montana, there has been a rapid growth of elder abuse.[5]  Elders’ vulnerabilities and larger net worth make them a prime target for financial abuse.[6]  The perpetrators are often family members interested in an inheritance.[7] 

In Montana, preventing elder abuse is official state policy.[8]  If Montana would legalize physician-assisted suicide, a new path of abuse would be created against the elderly.  Alex Schadenberg, Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, International, states:

"With assisted suicide laws in Washington and Oregon, 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 the administration. . . . [E]ven if a patient struggled, "who would know?"[9]

G. "Terminally Ill" Does Not Mean Dying

Baxter’s affirmative defense applies when patients are "terminally ill," a term that Baxter does not define.  During the Baxter litigation, the plaintiffs offered this definition:

"'Terminally ill adult patient' means '[an adult] who has an incurable or irreversible condition that, without the administration of life-sustaining treatment, will, in the opinion of his or her attending physician, result in death within a relatively short time.'"[10]

This definition is broad enough to include patients with chronic conditions who could "live for decades."  Attorney Theresa Schrempp and doctor Richard Wonderly state:

"[The] definition is broad enough to include an 18 year old who is insulin dependent or dependent on kidney dialysis, or a young adult with stable HIV/AIDS.  Each of these patients could live for decades with appropriate medical treatment.  Yet they are 'terminally ill' according to the definition promoted by advocates of assisted suicide."[11]

H. Legal Physician-Assisted Suicide Empowered the Oregon Health Plan, Not Individual Patients

 Once a patient is labeled "terminal," an easy argument can be made that his or her treatment should be denied. This has happened in Oregon where patients labeled "terminal" have not only been denied coverage for treatment, they have been offered assisted-suicide instead.

The most well known cases involve Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. (KATU TV, ABC News).[12]  The Oregon Health Plan refused to pay for their desired treatments and offered to pay for their suicides instead. Neither Wagner nor Stroup saw this as a celebration of their "choice." Stroup said: "This is my life they’re playing with." Wagner said: "I’m not ready to die."

Stroup and Wagner were steered to suicide. Moreover, it was the Oregon Health Plan doing the steering. Oregon’s law empowered the Oregon Health Plan, not individual patients. 

I. In Oregon, Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide is Correlated to an Increase in Other Suicides

Oregon's suicide rate, which excludes suicide under Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law, has been "increasing significantly" since 2000.[13]  Just three years prior, in 1997, Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide. [14]  In Oregon, legalization of physician-assisted suicide is statistically correlated with an increased rate of other suicides.

J.  The Oregon Reports do not Prove That Assisted-Suicide is "Safe"

 During the 2011 legislative session in Montana, proponents claimed that annual reports from Oregon demonstrated the safety of physician-assisted suicide.  These reports do not discuss whether the people who died consented when the lethal dose was administered.  During a hearing on SB 167, Senator Jeff Essmann made a related point, as follows:

"[A]ll the protections [in Oregon’s law] end after the prescription is written. [The proponents] admitted that the provisions in the Oregon law would permit one person to be alone in that room with the patient. And in that situation, there is no guarantee that that medication is self-administered.

So frankly, any of the studies that come out of the state of Oregon’s experience are invalid because no one who administers that drug against – to that patient is going to be turning themselves in for the commission of a homicide."[15]

K.  SB 167 was Defeated in the Senate Judiciary Committee

During the hearing on SB 167, Senator Essman also stated:

"There’s inadequate protection in [SB 167] for the powerless.  It’s our obligation to protect the powerless. . . .  I’m going to vote no."[16]

SB 167, seeking to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Montana, was defeated in the Senate Judiciary Committee.[17] 

L. Conclusion

 Legal assisted suicide is a recipe for elder abuse.  The practice has multiple other problems.  Don't make Oregon's and Washington's mistake.  Keep assisted suicide out of Montana.


*  Margaret Dore is an attorney in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.  She was an amicus curie in the Baxter litigation.  She testified before the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee against SB 167, which had sought to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Montana.  Her publications include Margaret K. Dore, "Aid in Dying: Not Legal in Idaho; Not About Choice," The Advocate, official publication of the Idaho State Bar, Vol. 52, No. 9, pages 18-20, September 2010.

* * *

[1]   Krieg v. Massey, 239 Mont. 469, 472-3, 781 P.2d 277 (1989). 

[2]  Id.
[3]  To view Baxter, go here.  To view an analysis of Baxter, go here.
[4]  Go here to see a transcript of this quote and other quotes by Senator Blewett. 
[5]  Great Falls Tribune, "Forum will focus on the rapid growth in abuse of elders," June 10 2009 ("The statistics are frightening, and unless human nature takes a turn for the better, they’re almost certain to get worse").  See also Nicole Grigg, Elder Abuse Prevention, Kulr8.com, June 15, 2010 and Big Sky Prevention of Elder Abuse Program, What is Elder Abuse.
[6]  MetLife Mature Market Institute Study:  Broken Trust: Elders, Family, and Finances, 2009. 
[7]  Id.
[8]  See e.g., the "Montana Elder and Persons With Developmental Disabilities Abuse Prevention Act," 52-3-801, MCA; the Protective Services Act for Aged Persons or Disabled Adults, 52-3-201, MCA; and the "Montana Older Americans Act," 52-3-501, et. al., MCA.  Also go here. 
[9]  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.isb.idaho.gov/pdf/advocate/issues/adv10oct.pdf. 
[10]  Plaintiffs’ Answer to Interrogatory No. 4, available at page 3, here:  http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/ConnMemo02.pdf  
[11]  Opinion Letter from Dr. Richard Wonderly and Theresa Schrempp, Esq., to Alex Schadenberg, available here:  http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/ConnMemo02.pdf
[12]  See Susan Harding and KATU web staff, "Letter noting assisted suicide raises questions," July 30, 2008 and Susan Donaldson James, "Death drugs Cause Uproar in Oregon," ABC News, August 6, 2008.  See also Ken Stevens, MD, "Oregon mistake costs lives," official publication of the Idaho State Bar, September 2010, pages 16-17, available at http://www.isb.idaho.gov/pdf/advocate/issues/adv10sep.pdf ("In Oregon, the mere presence of legal assisted-suicide steers patients to suicide . . . ").
[13]  See Oregon Government News Release, September 9, 2010 ("suicide rates have been increasing significantly since 2000"); and "Suicides in Oregon, Trends and Risk Factors, September 2010 ("Deaths relating to the death with Dignity Act (physician-assisted suicides) are not classified as suicides by Oregon law and therefore excluded from this report").
[14]  See e.g., "Oregon's Death with Dignity Act:  The First Year's Experience," page 1 ("On October 27, 1997, physician-assisted suicide became a legal medical option for terminally ill Oregonians").
[15]  Montana Senate Judiciary Hearing, February 10, 2011, Transcript, p. 15, lines 1 to 11, available here. 
[16]  Id., lines 12 to 14.
[17]  See Montana Legislative website at
http://www.leg.mt.gov/css/default.asp (SB 167 was tabled in Committee on February 10, 2010).

"I was afraid to leave my husband alone"

Letter from Oregon resident, Kathryn Judson, Published in the Hawaii Free Press, February 15, 2011.  To view the original letter, click here and scroll down towards the bottom of the page.   

When my husband was seriously ill several years ago, I collapsed in a half-exhausted heap in a chair once I got him into the doctor's office, relieved that we were going to get badly needed help (or so I thought).

To my surprise and horror, during the exam I overheard the doctor giving my husband a sales pitch for assisted suicide. 'Think of what it will spare your wife, we need to think of her' he said, as a clincher.

Now, if the doctor had wanted to say 'I don't see any way I can help you, knowing what I know, and having the skills I have' that would have been one thing. If he'd wanted to opine that certain treatments weren't worth it as far as he could see, that would be one thing. But he was tempting my husband to commit suicide. And that is something different.

I was indignant that the doctor was not only trying to decide what was best for David, but also what was supposedly best for me (without even consulting me, no less).

We got a different doctor, and David lived another five years or so. But after that nightmare in the first doctor's office, and encounters with a 'death with dignity' inclined nurse, I was afraid to leave my husband alone again with doctors and nurses, for fear they'd morph from care providers to enemies, with no one around to stop them.

It's not a good thing, wondering who you can trust in a hospital or clinic. I hope you are spared this in Hawaii.

Kathryn Judson, Oregon