Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) -- If Washington state voters want to know what life may be like if they approve a measure to legalize assisted suicide this November, they need only examine the problems in Oregon. That’s because Oregon, the first state to allow the grisly practice, has had a host of problem following its approval of a similar measure.

The Coalition Against Assisted Suicide tells LifeNews.com that the prestigious Michigan Law Review compiled an analysis of the ramifications of Oregon’s assisted suicide law and the evidence isn’t pretty.

In the legal paper, Dr. Herbert Hendin, psychiatrist and CEO/Medical Director of Suicide Prevention International, a nonprofit organization located in New York, and Dr. Kathleen Foley, neurologist and professor at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, examined the Oregon story.

The Hendin-Foley study cites specific examples where opinions of patients’ long-time attending physicians are ignored and doctors with only a smattering of familiarity with the patient write the prescription for the lethal dose of barbiturates.

The study’s authors say such “doctor shopping” is highly unethical and in no way could the “shopped doctor’s” viewpoint be considered a truly professional opinion rendered in the best interests of the patient.

Chris Carlson, chair of the Coalition, told LifeNews.com that proponents of WA's assisted suicide initiative, I-1000, continue to mislead Washington voters by falsely claiming that "…everything's going great in Oregon…" even when confronted with the numerous serious flaws with Oregon's assisted suicide law exposed by this sentinel study.

“The study is replete with examples of unintended consequences to vulnerable, terminally ill patients in Oregon,” said Carlson.

Carlson explained, “Of great significance, the Hendin and Foley study stated unequivocally , ‘…seemingly reasonable safeguards for the care and protection of terminally ill patients written into the Oregon law are being circumvented....(and that the Oregon authority charged with overseeing assisted suicide)…does not collect the information it would need to effectively monitor the law and in its actions and publications acts as the defender of the law rather than as the protector of the welfare of terminally ill patients.’"

What disturbed Carlson the most was the unintended effect that would be produced if Washington’s I-1000 were to pass.

Hendin and Foley summed up the concerns in their law review, saying, “If the patient has seen no one knowledgeable enough to undertake to understand and relieve the desperation, anxiety, and depression that underlie most requests for assisted suicide, then even if the patient is capable, an informed decision is not possible."

The lack of referral to psychiatrists who might find a patient requesting assisted suicide to be not mentally competent was troubling to the authors who pointed out that in most cases no mental evaluation is conducted.

Carlson said that last year in Oregon, “not one of the some 50 individuals availing themselves of physician assisted suicide asked for or received any mental health counseling.”

He continued, “This has to be troubling to any thinking person. As the authors noted, the study reflects a lack of concern for the welfare of depressed patients.”

Carlson and the Coalition urge all voters to read the initiative to see for themselves its numerous dangerous flaws and he also calls on the state’s newspapers to reprint the Michigan Law Review study to make it accessible to Washington's voters.

“If one reads this study, you can almost guarantee they will recognize how false is the tired refrain by I-1000 backers that the law is working well in Oregon,” he said. “Assisted suicide is clearly not working in Oregon and it is pure myth to claim that it is.”

Related web sites:
Coalition Against Assisted Suicide - http://www.noassistedsuicide.com
Hendin-Foley Study - http://www.michiganlawreview.org/archive/106/8/hendinfoley.pdf

Sign Up for Free Pro-Life News From LifeNews.com