All News

Fenn and Ganzini, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, June 1999.

THE OREGONIAN (Sunday, February 18, 2001)
By Erin Hoover Barnett of The Oregonian staff

FEW USE IT, BUT SUICIDE LAW STILL HAS IMPACT

Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act influences end-of-life care
across the state as doctors wrestle with prescribing
pain treatment

Sixteen people died by physician-assisted suicide in 1998 and another 27 in 1999. And when the Oregon Health Division releases its third annual report on the practice Wednesday, little if any growth is expected in the number of cases, say experts outside the health division.

The number of reported incidents of euthanasia has dropped by 15 percent during the past four years, but it is suspected the actual “mercy killing” figure is double the amount of recorded cases.

Legal experts and civil libertarians have condemned the gagging order on pro-euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin as a possible breach of the Bill of Rights.

On Wednesday, May 7, 2003, oral arguments in Oregon v. Ashcroft begin before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

An 89-year-old man will be charged with murder after telling police he smothered his 85-year-old wife in her nursing home bed last week to end her pain, authorities said Monday.

Lesley Martin can resume her campaign to legalise euthanasia after a gagging order was lifted in the Wanganui District Court yesterday.

On October 10, the ACLU-NC filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court supporting Robert Wendland, a man on life-support, who had previously asserted his desire not to be sustained artificially by medical technology.

LEGISLATION allowing voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill may be debated this year in State Parliament.

If the Death with Dignity Bill before Parliament makes voluntary euthanasia legal, Wanganui woman Lesley Martin should take most of the credit, Philip Nitschke says.

A judge Monday refused to set aside a guardian’s instructions for the care of 92-year-old Margaret Russell, a nursing home resident who has not been given any food or nutrients for five weeks.