We have written before about how proponents of assisted suicide claim many people who obtain the lethal prescriptions there never use them.  They even assert that some people live longer once they know they have the means to end their lives if they find them unbearable.  If there assertions are true, it is shocking that we will never know how many patients who did die under the law were killed involuntarily after filling the prescription.  Filling that prescription is like advertising one’s availability to be murdered by an heir or  exasperated caregiver.   The letter below, published yesterday in a newspaper in the (Missoula) Montana Standard,  makes it abundantly clear that even in the unlikely event that someone suspects foul play in a the death of a patient with a prescription and reports it to the police, the death will not, and cannot, be investigated.  Do we want this for Vermont?

Below, in italics, is the full letter.  Thanks to Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition for posting it on his website (http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2013/01/oregon-assisted-suicide-law-is-unsafe.html).   Here’s a link to the original source: http://mtstandard.com/news/opinion/mailbag/oregon-assisted-suicide-law-is-not-safe-according-to-lawyer/article_329524a6-629a-11e2-bea8-0019bb2963f4.html

Oregon assisted suicide law is not safe, according to lawyer

15 hours ago

I am a lawyer in Oregon who specializes in injury claims including wrongful death cases. I understand that Montana will be considering assisted suicide legislation this session. I write to inform your readers that Oregon’s assisted suicide law lacks transparency. Even law enforcement is denied access to information collected by the State. Moreover, this is official state policy.

In 2010, I was retained by a client whose father had died under our assisted-suicide act. Unlike other deaths I have investigated, it was difficult to get basic information.

After I wrote the state epidemiologist, I received a letter from the Attorney General’s Office that the agency charged with collecting assisted-suicide data, the Oregon Health Authority, “may only make public annual statistical information.” The letter also referred me to the Oregon Medical Board and law enforcement.

The Board wrote me that there could be no investigation without an allegation of misconduct against a physician. At my request, a police officer was assigned to the case. Per his confidential report, the Oregon Health Authority would neither confirm nor deny that my client’s father had died under our act. Per the report, the officer did, however, talk to the doctor signing the death certificate who said that he did not know that the death had involved assisted-suicide. The death certificate listed the immediate cause of death as “cancer” and the manner of death as “natural.”

Per the report, the officer also spoke with potential perpetrators who assured him that the death had been voluntary. He closed the case.

This is a link to Oregon’s data release policy as of Jan. 1, that it “will not confirm on a case-by-case basis whether an individual has used, or a provider has been involved, with Death with Dignity.” http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Pages/policy.aspx

Without transparency our law is not safe.

Isaac Jackson

Box 41240

Eugene, Ore.