By Moe Wosepka, Executive Director
Montana Catholic Conference

One of the myths about assisted suicide in Oregon is that there is extensive oversight and reporting, thus assuring strong safeguards for patients. A noted psychiatrist who co-founded Physicians for Compassionate Care, Dr. N.G. Hamilton, disagrees.

He describes the case of the first woman to die by assisted suicide in Oregon even though, under state law, she was ineligible for assisted suicide because she was depressed.

The woman’s first physician did not think assisted suicide was the proper approach to her medical problems. She was sent to another, who found she was depressed. That physician prescribed antidepressants. The family then consulted Compassion in Dying, a proponent of assisted-suicide laws. Compassion in Dying found a physician who determined, over the phone, that the woman was rational, so she was referred to a series of physicians who support assisted suicide. The woman received the lethal overdose that she requested. (N.G. Hamilton and C.A. Hamilton, “Therapeutic Response to Assisted Suicide Request,” Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 1999; 63:191-201).

Oregon’s law supposedly has safeguards to prevent a person from obtaining lethal drugs for assisted suicide when the patient is incompetent and/or if the request is involuntary. However, as this story shows, those safeguards can be circumvented through “doctor shopping.” This safeguard is further compromised because the law has no provisions to require physicians spend more than a short time with the patient in order to fully assess his or her wishes.

One physician, who advises Compassion & Choices, a leader in the push to adopt an assisted-suicide law in Montana, “acknowledged that she was involved in over 100 deaths. Another said that he makes his dispositions over the phone—and can reliably rule out depression over the phone.” (H. Rex Greene, M.D., letter to Council on Ethical Affairs, Oakland, Calif., Opposition to Neutrality on AB 651, assisted suicide, Feb. 22, 2006. www.dredf.org/assisted_suicide/greene.shtml)

As long as Oregon physicians operate in good faith, they are not subject to any form of liability, criminal or civil. (Or.Rev. Stat.Sect 127.885, Sect. 1-3)

It is debatable whether safeguards in Oregon law protect patients. It appears the greatest protections are for physicians.

We have experienced a somewhat similar situation in Montana, with the new medical marijuana law. Opportunities have developed for physicians to set up offices in motels, to certify people for medical marijuana cards. The physicians see so many people that it is doubtful they know them well enough to prescribe any medication, yet they authorize the marijuana cards for an entire year, with no limits on quantity or refills.

If we legalize assisted suicide, will we find traveling physicians in motels certifying those they deem eligible for physician-assisted suicide, and prescribing the lethal medication? Perhaps we will have physicians who will prescribe the drugs over the phone, making analyses as to which patients are competent and which are not, merely through a phone conversation.

This is not health care, certainly not of the caliber we should demand. Ask your physician, the one who knows you best, if he or she will prescribe drugs for assisted suicide. If the answer is “yes,” you might consider finding a different physician who will provide truly compassionate care by treating the condition, not by eliminating the patient.


Moe Wosepka is executive director of the Montana Catholic Conference. He may be reached by phone at 406-442-5761 or by e-mail to director@montanacc.org.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 6, June 18, 2010.