Major proponents of assisted death or suicide legalization often support their premise with an appeal to an individual’s hypothetical right to “die with dignity.” In most cases, these protagonists often defend their case using the “die with dignity” tag (Gentzler, 2003). The Oregon statute which gives physicians the rights to perform assisted suicide in particular limited statuses has a reference of “The Oregon Death with Dignity Act” (Gentzler, 2003). The proposition of the death with dignity act commenced during the summer of 1997 when the United States Supreme Court heard dual cases in which there was a debate on the right to physician-assisted death, termed at that time constitutional (Washington V. Glucksberg, 1997). In the minds of those who fervently sought this right, human dignity was the foremost consideration. At that moment, the presiding judge, Justice Souter, summarized their inclination in a statement, which inferred that the proponents sought to end pain only in their short remaining lives with dignity. On this view, dignity remained as a property that humans would lose because of severe mental dysfunction. In America Physician-Assisted Death (PAD) is taking the healthcare industry by storm. While some health officials are for this current trend, others vehemently oppose it as a breach of the doctor’s Hippocratic Oath. Overall, statistical inference, particularly in the legislated state of Oregon shows an increasing susceptibility to the trend.
In Oregon, terminally ill adults are able to not only obtain, but also use prescribed medications that administer doses of medications deemed lethal. Therefore, in comprehending the present American statistical death with dignity stance, the state of Oregon stands as a reverberating case study in a contemporary medical procedure met with equal mixed reactions. The chart below, received by the Oregon Public Health Division shows how the Death with Dignity Act worked to facilitate the termination of life among Oregonians.
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In the period of the year of 2016, 204 people received lethal prescriptions of medications under the provisions of the DWDA legislature compared to 2018 in 2015 (refer to figure above). Further cases surfaced in the year 2017 with more than 133 reports as of January 23 (file1). This trend shows a marked increase in the number of patients willing to ingest lethal medications prescribed in the Death with Dignity Act of Oregon. On a more consolidative perspective, since the passage of the law in 1997, a total of 1,749 people have undergone the procedure of prescription descriptions written to instigate and support euthanasia or death with dignity, as it is commonly known (Center for Health Statistics, 2017). Moreover, aside from written prescriptions, 1,127 patients have succumbed to their deaths from the ingestion of lethal medications, a rate that stood at 37 per 10,000 deaths, reflecting a disturbing preference for euthanasia.
In America, statistical data reveals that the total number of physicians who support euthanasia exceed 50 percent and that public support for this practice, particularly, among terminally ill patients stands at 86 percent ("Euthanasia Statistics," 2017). On average, 55 percent of terminally ill American senior citizens die of immense pain indicating the people’s preference of euthanasia. In the state of Washington also, similar laws went into effect and supported the act of death with dignity, through the self-administration of lethal medications prescribed by a physician (Cook, 2015). Most statistical data on death with dignity comes from the Oregon Public Health Division since the state enacted laws on euthanasia decades ago. In the case of underlying causes of euthanasia or death with dignity, most patients refer death due to illnesses such as cancer, heart diseases, chronic and irreparable lower respiratory diseases, HIV/AIDS, among other illnesses (Blanke, LeBlanc, Hershman, Ellis & Meyskens, 2017). The pie chart below indicates Oregon’s euthanasia cases by the underlying illnesses (Cook, 2015).
References
Blanke, C., LeBlanc, M., Hershman, D., Ellis, L., & Meyskens, F. (2017). Characterizing 18 Years of the Death With Dignity Act in Oregon. JAMA Oncology , 3 (10), 1403. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamaoncol.2017.0243
Center for Health Statistics. (2017). Oregon Death with Dignity Act: Data Summary, 2016 . Portland, OR: Oregon Health Authority: Public Health Division.
Cook, L. (2015). Here's Who Uses Oregon's Death With Dignity Act . usnews.com . Retrieved 23 October 2017, from https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/10/16/heres-who-uses-oregons-death-with-dignity-act
Euthanasia Statistics . (2017). Statistic Brain . Retrieved 23 October 2017, from http://www.statisticbrain.com/euthanasia-statistics/
Gentzler, J. (2003). What is a Death With Dignity?. Journal Of Medicine And Philosophy , 28 (4), 461-487.
Washington et al. v. Glucksberg et al. (1997). 117 S. Ct. 2258. In: M. Battin, R. Rhodes, and A. Silvers (Eds.) (1998). Physician-assisted suicide: Expanding the debate (pp. 377–422). New York: Routledge
