Oregon Is No Model For ‘Assisted Dying’

Professor David Paton writes:

Assisted-dying advocates love to point to the US state of Oregon as a possible model for an assisted-dying law. Yes, they might begrudgingly acknowledge that Canada and the Netherlands have taken things a bit too far. But Oregon – where assisted dying has been legalised for almost 30 years – has struck the ideal balance, they claim, between giving people the option to die and installing rigorous safeguards.

In the UK, supporters of Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to legalise assisted suicide have quickly begun promoting Oregon as the ideal on which our own law should be based. Perhaps we shouldn’t blame them entirely for trying to divert MPs’ attention away from the appalling way assisted suicide has evolved in Canada, where disabled people have been effectively coerced into ending their lives. But it is worth taking a closer look at the reality of what has been happening in Oregon.

Oregon was the first US state to legalise assisted suicide through its 1997 Death with Dignity Act. In the first year of operation, just 16 assisted suicides took place under the act. Since then, deaths have rocketed to 367 in 2023 – that’s not far off one per cent of all annual deaths in the state. If England and Wales ended up at the same rate per population, more than 5,000 people would be helped to commit suicide each year.

Leadbeater claims that her bill would help to address the current high rate of non-assisted suicides among terminally ill people. If so, we would have expected to see suicides reduce in Oregon over time. In fact, the reverse is true. Peer-reviewed research conducted by me and my colleague, Sourafel Girma, found that assisted-suicide laws like those in Oregon lead to an increase in total suicides of about 18 per cent. As for non-assisted suicides, far from going down, they actually increase by about six per cent.

The official Oregon annual reports into assisted suicide reveal some other troubling issues. In the UK, many people are rightly worried that assisted-dying laws might be exploited by unscrupulous family members. A bigger issue is the more subtle pressure elderly people might face from feeling they are a burden – even when family members are loving and supportive. In 2023, 43 per cent of those who were helped to commit suicide in Oregon reported that one of their key concerns was being a burden on friends, family or carers. Worse still, the percentage who are worried about being a burden has increased significantly over time, from just 13 per cent in 1998.

Oregon also destroys the case that assisted suicide is somehow the less painful and more dignified end to suffering. The Oregon reports reveal that between 2001 and 2023, 103 assisted-suicide patients (seven per cent) took over six hours to die. The longest time to death was 137 hours (5.7 days). Nine patients even regained consciousness after taking the drugs. All too often, the process of assisted suicide is neither compassionate nor kind. Just look at the case of David Prueitt, who woke up 65 hours after taking what was meant to be a lethal dose of medication.

Behind shocking statistics like these lie the stories of real people. This week, a guest on BBC Radio 4’s PM made the unchallenged assertion that Oregon had seen ‘no abuses of the law’. Presumably, PM researchers had lost access to Google. Otherwise, host Evan Davis might have been able to respond to the claim by raising the case of Michael Freeland, an Oregon man who was suffering from lung cancer, as well as having a 43-year history of depression. As per Oregon law, Freeland should have received psychiatric screening to ensure that he was mentally able to make the decision to die. This evaluation never happened, and he was prescribed lethal drugs.

Perhaps the best we can say for the experience of Oregon is that it has not been as disastrous as Canada. That is hardly a reassuring basis for MPs to vote in favour of the most significant social legislation for a generation. Especially as they have been given less than three weeks to review and analyse Leadbeater’s bill.

Let’s hope that, in that short time, MPs do look to Oregon – not as an example to follow, but as a warning to heed.