The article in parentheses below was published in the July 2011 bulletin of the bar association of Kings County, Washington’s largest county
(https://www.kcba.org/newsevents/barbulletin/BView.aspx?Month=07&Year=2011&AID=article10.htm). The concerns about abuse it details are as relevant for Vermont as for Washington, because the Vermont bill is similar to the statutes governing assisted suicide in Washington. Both are modeled on Oregon’s assisted suicide law.
It is important to remember that the dangers of abuse cannot be amended out of any assisted suicide legislation, because the very existence of such legislation, coupled with cost and other pressures, pushes patents in the direction of suicide.
July 2011 Bar Bulletin
Assisted-Suicide Report Lacks Information about Consent
By Margaret K. Dore
On March 10, the Washington State Department of Health issued a
formal report about our physician-assisted suicide act.1 However, the
report does not address whether the people who died under the act did
so on a voluntary basis.
Washington’s Act
Washington’s assisted-suicide act was enacted via a ballot initiative
in 2008 and went into effect in 2009.2 During the election,
proponents claimed that the act’s passage would assure individuals
control over their deaths.
The act, however, does not assure such control. For example, the act
allows a person’s heir, who will benefit financially from the death,
to assist in signing the person up for the lethal dose.3 There are
also no witnesses required at the death.4 Without disinterested
witnesses, the opportunity is created for someone else to administer
the lethal dose to the person without his consent.
The Assisted-Suicide Report
Statistical Information
The Department of Health report focuses on statistical information.
This information states that lethal doses were dispensed to 87 people
during 2010. Of these 87 people, 51 are reported to have died after
ingesting a lethal dose.5
Physician Reports
The report also includes information about the circumstances of the
deaths. For example, the report provides statistics regarding how
long it took people to die after ingesting the lethal dose.6
According to the report, the data for these statistics were obtained
from an “After Death Reporting Form” completed by the prescribing
physician after each death.7 According to the report, however, the
prescribing physician is rarely present at the death.8 If that is the
case, he or she is necessarily relying on other persons for the data reported.
Patient “Concerns”
The report seeks to document the “concerns” of the people who died,
which led to their requesting the lethal dose.9 The data for these
concerns come from the “After Death Reporting Form,” which lists
seven questions to be checked off by the prescribing doctor.10 These
choices do not include the possibility of abuse by an heir.11
The report also provides no information as to whether the people who
died consented when the lethal dose was administered. In other words,
there is no information regarding whether the deaths were truly voluntary.12
Margaret K. Dore is an elder law/appellate attorney in Washington.
She is a former law clerk to the Washington Supreme Court and a
former chair of the Elder Law Committee of the American Bar
Association Family Law Section. Her publications include “‘Death with
Dignity’: A Recipe for Elder Abuse and Homicide (Albeit not by
Name),” Marquette Elder’s Advisor, Vol. 11, No. 2, Spring 2010,
available at
http://www.margaretdore.com/pdf/Recipe_for_Elder_Abuse.pdf.
For more information, see www.margaretdore.com.
1 Washington State Department of Health 2010 Death with Dignity Act
Report (“Report”), issued March 10, 2011, available at
http://www.doh.wa.gov/dwda/forms/DWDA2010.pdf.
2 Washington’s assisted-suicide law was passed as Initiative 1000 on
November 4, 2008, and went into effect on March 5, 2009. See RCW 70.245.903.
3 RCW 70.245.030 and .220 state that one of two required witnesses to
the lethal dose request form cannot be the patient’s heir or other
person who will benefit from the patient’s death; the other witness
may be an heir or other person who will benefit from the death.
4 See Washington’s act in its entirety at RCW 70.245.010 et. seq.
5 Report, Executive Summary, at 1.
6 Report at 9, Table 5 (“Circumstances and complications relating to
ingestion of medication prescribed under the Death with Dignity Act
of the participants who have died”).
7 Id. (“Data are collected from the After Death Reporting form”). A
blank “After Death Reporting Form” can be viewed at
http://www.doh.wa.gov/dwda/forms/AfterDeathReportingForm.pdf (last
viewed March 10, 2011).
8 According to the Report, the prescribing physician was present when
the lethal dose was ingested in just 4% of the deaths occurring in
2010; the prescribing physician was present at 8% of such deaths in
2009. See Report at 9, Table 5.
9 Report at 7, Table 3.
10 See After Death Reporting Form, supra note 7, Question 7.
11 Id.
12 The act provides for self-administration of the lethal dose.
“Self-administer” is, however, a specially defined term that allows
someone else to administer the lethal dose to the person at issue.
For more information, see Margaret K. Dore, “Death with Dignity: What
Do We Tell Our Clients?”, Washington State Bar Association, Bar News,
July 2009, available at
http://wsba.org/media/publications/barnews/jul-09+deathwithdignity.htm.