Showing posts with label Suicide Contagion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suicide Contagion. Show all posts

Friday, August 18, 2017

In Oregon, Other Suicides Have Increased With Legalization of Assisted Suicide

By Margaret K. Dore, Esq.

Since the passage of Oregon’s law allowing physician-assisted suicide, other suicides in Oregon have steadily increased. This is consistent with a suicide contagion in which the legalization of physician-assisted suicides has encouraged other suicides. In Oregon, the financial and emotional impacts of suicide on family members and the broader community are devastating and long-lasting.[1]

Friday, October 21, 2016

Brittany Maynard's Story Sends the Wrong Message to Young People

Will Johnston, MD
Dear Editor:

I agree with the Gazette editorial board that legal assisted suicide sends the wrong message to young people. ("Vote 'no' on more suicide," 09/26/16). I also write to describe the damaging impact of the highly publicized case of Brittany Maynard, on my young adult patient who became actively suicidal after watching her video. I understand that her story is now being used to promote assisted suicide legalization in Colorado.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Teen Suicide: "Assisted sucide law sends contradictory message"

From the US State of Vermont where the state legislature is considering a bill to legalize assisted suicide under an Oregon-style law:

http://vtdigger.org/2012/02/01/page-assisted-suicide-law-sends-contradictory-message/

Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Guy Page, a parent and resident of Cambridge.

In the Jan. 19 mail I received a letter from Lamoille Union High School, where my daughter is enrolled. It begins with the following sentence: “Over the last few years Vermont has seen an increase in suicide among young people.” It went on to describe a school initiative to hopefully address this awful development. I hope they are successful. All of my children have friends, or friends of friends, who have taken their own lives.

My eldest son, Tim, was a constant suicide risk through his teens. Through the wise, compassionate help of state social workers, Tim escaped his teen years alive. I can tell you that he was personally shaken by the implications, to him, of the proposed assisted suicide law several years ago. When he heard about it, my brilliant, troubled son began to shake in anger and almost despair. “Those hypocrites,” he said. “They’ve been telling me all this time that suicide is never OK.” It didn’t matter when I said the law is meant to address another set of problems – his teenaged hypocrisy-o-meter had already pegged assisted suicide as another example of “do as I say, not as I do, it’s all right for adults, not OK for kids.”

Recently I researched teen suicide in Oregon, where assisted suicide became legal in 1998. According to the Oregon health department website, there were more teen suicides after the law passed than before — 1999: 29 suicides. 2000: 44 suicides. 2001: 31. 2002: 37. 2003: 46. 2004: 52. The last two years were the highest two-year period in their survey. Furthermore, 94 percent of teen suicide attempts leading to hospitalization were caused by ingesting drugs – the only form of assisted suicide permitted by Oregon state law. Kids learn from their elders. 
 
Does this “prove” a link between the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law and teen suicide? No. But the burden of proof is on those who say, “Don’t worry, it will all be OK, none of our teens will think that.” As a parent of an at-risk child, I think this law may unintentionally tell other troubled teens “when it gets too hard it’s okay to end it all.” As the letter from my daughter’s high school says, the real world is a very hard place for some teens right now, and I think this law will just make it harder.

There are plenty of other reasons to oppose this bill. Before my wife passed in February 2011, she was appalled and upset at end-of-life questions asked of her in the ICU that to her seemed motivated by hospital cost-control. It drove a (thankfully temporary) wedge of distrust between her and her caregivers. So Vermont Insurance Commissioner Steve Kimball’s newspaper comments connecting this end-of-life issue with the high cost of health care were chilling. By contrast, Orange County Sen. Mark MacDonald’s daughter was one of Diane’s nurses and provided skilled, affirming care that should be the goal of the state’s health policy. But for me the teen suicide connection is reason enough for the Senate to drop this bill before it does irreversible harm.


Article printed from VTDigger: http://vtdigger.org/
URL to article: http://vtdigger.org/2012/02/01/page-assisted-suicide-law-sends-contradictory-message/
URLs in this post:

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Carter Case and Assisted Suicide: A Recipe for Elder Abuse and a Threat to Individual Rights

For shorter print versions of this article, click here and here.
For talking points, click here.

Will Johnston, MD
Margaret Dore, JD
Alex Schadenberg
November 1, 2011
"Those who believe that legal
assisted suicide . . . will assure their
autonomy and choice are naive."

William Reichel, MD
Montreal Gazette,
May 30, 2010[1]

A.  Introduction

Carter vs. Attorney General of Canada brings a constitutional challenge to Canada's laws prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia.[2]  Carter also seeks to 
legalize these practices as a medical treatment.[3]  Last year, a bill in Parliament seeking a similar result was overwhelmingly defeated.[4] 

This article's focus is physician-assisted suicide.

Legalizing this practice would be a recipe for elder abuse.  Legalization would also empower the Canadian health care system to the detriment of individual patient rights.  There would be other problems.

B.  Parliament Rejected Assisted Suicide

On April 21, 2010, Parliament defeated Bill C-384, which would have legalized physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada.[5]  The vote was 228 to 59.[6]
C.  The Carter Case