(Oregon Right to Life) — A new report is highlighting how Oregon’s loosened restrictions on legal assisted suicide are encouraging Americans from across the country to travel to the Beaver State seeking prescriptions for death-inducing pills.
“In Oregon, 23 out-of-state residents died using medical assistance in 2023, just over 6% of the state total, according to the Oregon Health Authority,” KFF Health News reported in an August 20 article highlighting the trend. “Oncologist Charles Blanke, whose clinic in Portland is devoted to end-of-life care… expects the numbers to grow.”
Oregon legalized physician assisted suicide – euphemistically called “death with dignity” – in 1994. The measure took effect in 1997 after overcoming legal hurdles. Last year, Democratic Governor Tina Kotek signed a law stripping away the residency requirement and allowing Oregon physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to people from other states. The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) had already stopped enforcing the residency requirement in 2022.
The rollback of the rule led to an immediate surge in overall prescriptions and deaths.
The OHA report for 2023, released in March 2024, showed an almost 30% increase in physician-assisted suicide prescriptions and a 20% increase in reported deaths following ingestion of the prescribed drugs. In a press release, the government agency attributed the uptick in part to the removal of the residency requirement.
According to KFF, in the past year alone, Dr. Blanke has “seen two to four out-of-state patients a week — about one-quarter of his practice —” at his Portland clinic. He has also “fielded calls from across the U.S., including New York, the Carolinas, Florida and ‘tons from Texas.’”
The expansion of assisted suicide in the state has drawn criticism from pro-life advocates.
“Allowing out-of-state residents to come to Oregon for evaluation by a doctor who may not know them and has an even greater chance of missing depression and coercion shows lack of respect for these patients,” Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation president Dr. Sharon L. Quick said in a March statement shared with Oregon Right to Life in response to the 2023 OHA report.
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Despite pushback from pro-life and disability rights advocates, the popularity of legal assisted suicide appears to be increasing. But not everyone who requests assisted suicide, even in Oregon, will get a prescription, KFF pointed out.
People requesting “death with dignity” in Oregon must meet several criteria, including having a terminal diagnosis with less than six months to live and submitting to an assessment by two doctors, the outlet noted. Individuals with mental or cognitive impairments are not eligible for assisted suicide in Oregon.
Citing Peg Sandeen, CEO of the group Death With Dignity, KFF observed that advocates of assisted suicide believe these sorts of “rules create undue burdens for people who are already suffering.” The article also highlighted the fact that exceptions to the rules can be (and are being) made – for instance, Oregon has an option to waive the 21-day waiting period to receive lethal drugs. And people like Sandeen are hopeful that more states will follow Oregon’s lead in expanding access to assisted suicide.
Pro-life advocates, meanwhile, are actively working to restore cultural respect and legal protection for the dignity of every human life, regardless of age, disability, or diagnosis. They argue that current legal guardrails to protect against forced euthanasia or medically-induced death for people suffering from mental disorders or non-terminal illnesses are insufficient. They also point out that eligibility for assisted suicide and euthanasia has expanded in countries like the Netherlands and Canada to include individuals without terminal diagnoses.
Theo Boer, a healthcare ethics professor at Protestant Theological University in Groningen, told The Free Press he had served on a euthanasia review board in the Netherlands from 2005 until his resignation in 2014. During his time on the board, he said, he “saw the Dutch euthanasia practice evolve from death being a last resort to death being a default option.”
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That phenomenon has pro-life advocates in places like Oregon worried that assisted suicide laws will be expanded in the U.S. as well, placing older adults and those with disabilities at risk of seeing suicide as their best or only option.
According to the 2023 OHA report, the most frequently cited reasons for pursuing physician-assisted suicide were loss of autonomy (91.6%), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (88.3%), and loss of dignity (63.8%). 43.3% said they didn’t want to be a burden on others.
“Physician-assisted suicide targets vulnerable people who are made to feel that their lives are no longer valuable or worth living,” Oregon Right to Life executive director Lois Anderson previously said in response to the report.
“Instead of continuing to prescribe toxic cocktails of life-ending drugs, we should provide truly compassionate measures, ensuring that people facing end-of-life decisions have access to high-quality palliative care,” she said.
Since the “Death With Dignity Act” took effect in 1997, a total of 4,274 people have been prescribed lethal drugs, and at least 2,847 people (67%) have died after consuming them.
Oregon Right to Life opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide in all forms.
Anyone experiencing serious depression or suicidal thoughts is encouraged to reach out to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Family members and friends of medically vulnerable people at risk of euthanasia or assisted suicide can also reach out to the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network’s Crisis Lifeline at 1-855-300-HOPE (4673).
Oregon Right to Life supports the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception until natural death, and opposes all cases of euthanasia, whereby a person is deliberately killed through direct action or omission, even if that act is by their permission. Examples of euthanasia include allowing disabled newborns to die of routinely treatable medical conditions, withholding food or water from the comatose, or lethally injecting a terminally ill patient. Read this and all our position statements here.
