Pro assisted suicide advocates are expert spin artists who specialize in ignoring the forest for the trees. But this bit of cow manure is so obviously false that if the media weren’t generally totally in the tank, the campaign would become a laughing stock. From “The Oregon Experience” on the Yes on 1-000 Web site:
The poor, disabled or minority populations were not adversely impacted in any manner because all of the patients who chose the option had health care coverage.
Oh really? Better tell that to Oregon lung cancer patient Barbara Wagner, who was told by Oregon Medicaid that it would not pay for chemotherapy to extend her life, but would pay for her assisted suicide. The same thing happened to Randy Stroup when he wanted chemo for his recurrent prostate cancer.
If refusing to pay for treatment but paying for killing isn’t an “adverse impact,” then what is?
Here’s another whopper:
Approximately 88% or more over the years were in hospice, and all of them were at the very end of their dying process.
First, the annual statistics published by the State of Oregon can’t tell us that. Moreover, we know for a fact that the assertion is flat out false. As described in the Journal of the American Psychiatric Association, Michael Freeland received a lethal prescription nearly 2 years before he died a natural death—meaning that he clearly was not at the last stages of his disease.
And here’s another abuse in that case: When Freeland became psychotic, his psychiatrist left the lethal prescription “safely at home” even as he recommended hospitalization and then court oversight over the ill man’s affairs.
Assisted suicide in Oregon is rife with abuse. With the exceptions of the “no funds for care but will pay for killing” stories, the media just won’t cover it.
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