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. 

Margaret Dore is an elder law attorney in Washington State.  She is also President of Choice is an Illusion, a non-profit corporation opposing assisted suicide and euthanasia.  For more information, see www.margaretdore.com and www.choiceillusion.org

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[1]  Barbara Coombs Lee, "What We Know From Oregon's 'Death with Dignity' Experiment," Huffington Post, September 10, 2011.  To view her post, click here.