death with dignity.

Over Thanksgiving, my family had a weirdly morbid conversation. My mom’s brother apparently has a concern that if you are listed as an organ donor on your driver’s license, this may have a small chance of negatively impacting your care in a hospital. In discussing how I think that concern is ridiculous, the topic of physician assisted suicide (and the fact that it’s illegal) came up. And then, I learned about Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.

The Death with Dignity Act basically allows physicians to prescribe lethal medications for a patient to use to end his life. A couple important things to note for clarification purposes. The patient is the one administering the drug, not the physician. In order to get a prescription for a lethal medication, a patient must be fully capable of making all his health-care decisions and must have a terminal illness that gives them 6 months to live. The patient must make 2 oral requests (15 days apart – which is already 1 month of the 6 you have left to live) and a written request. And if it’s suspected the patient is suffering from a psychological disorder (i.e. depression), then the doctor can ask for a psych evaluation. So essentially, it’s physician assisted suicide in very very select situations. Except the Act specifically says it is not suicide, so insurance benefits aren’t negatively impacted.

I’m surprised I didn’t know about this Act earlier. It’s actually been around for over ten years – although only just recently it was upheld by the Supreme Court. And I hope eventually other states adopt similar policies.