Assisted suicide issue revisited on Oregon ballot
Hospices struggle to inject positive alternative
At press time, campaigning over a ballot initiative to overturn Oregon’s Measure 16 the first voter-approved law to legalize physician-assisted suicide was slow in getting off the ground.
Polls suggested that as many of two-thirds of eligible voters opposed Measure 51, which was placed on this year’s ballot by the Oregon state legislature to ask voters to repeal Measure 16 because of structural flaws discovered after it narrowly passed in 1994. Measure 51 is part of a mail-in ballot process, with voters allowed to mail their ballots during the two weeks prior to polls closing on Election Day, Nov. 4.
Hospice: An alternative to suicide
The Oregon Hospice Association (OHA), criticized in some quarters for not campaigning more vociferously against Measure 16 during its campaign, has been working long hours to get out the message of hospice care as a positive alternative to assisted suicide with some success, says Ann Jackson, OHA executive director. OHA, along with many other state and national hospice groups, is on record opposing legal assisted suicide.
By the logic of the ballot initiative, it supports Measure 51, which would repeal Measure 16. Measure 16 has never been implemented, becoming entangled in legal challenges. However, a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming assisted suicide bans in the states of Washington and New York also appeared to give a constitutional green light to state experiments in this controversial area, including Measure 16.
"We may be invisible, but we are not silent on this issue," Jackson asserts. "I do radio interviews and talk to reporters from the Oregonian newspaper almost daily. We’re doing background all over the place, including the national media, trying to provide a frame for viewing this issue. It’s not true that OHA has been silent on this issue. Nor is it true that Oregonians don’t know about the hospice option."
But it can be difficult to get hospice on the front pages. Two-thirds of the state’s hospices are facility-based, and most parent health organizations have effectively gagged their hospice directors on the grounds that the issue is too controversial for them to take a position, Jackson adds.
Measure 51 proponents emphasize flaws in Measure 16, such as the issue of whether the oral medications allowed under the law would be sufficiently lethal in all cases. However, Oregon’s Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber, MD, has publicly aligned himself with the "no on 51" campaign, even though he opposes legalizing physician-assisted suicide, on the grounds that the voters already spoke their will in 1994.
This year, the legislature couldn’t pass legislation to fix the alleged flaws in Measure 16 or guarantee access to hospice care. Just sending the issue back to the voters is viewed by some as an abdication of responsibility.
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