The bogus Oregon death with dignity assisted suicide statistics are out, and the numbers are up again.
According to the report–based on physician self-reporting–in 2014, 105 people overdosed themselves with drugs obtained via a doctor’s prescription (usually, facilitated in some way by the suicide pushers at Compassion and Choices.)
Meanwhile, in CA an assisted suicide bill has been filed–looser than Oregon’s–that I will analyze in detail when I have more time.
And that got me to thinking (which is always dangerous, I know): Suicide pushers claim that their agenda is no big deal because the numbers who kill themselves in Oregon are relatively small.
But Oregon’s population is only about 10% of California’s (37.7 million versus 3.8 million).
If California’s assisted suicide numbers were the same as Oregon’s, more than 1000 people would commit assisted suicide each year. That’s roughly 85 a month, or nearly 3 every day.
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That number would steadily rise as people came desensitized to doctor-prescribed death.
Currently, about 3300 Californians commit suicide each year. Add the assisted suicides, and there would be a 1/3 increase, to about 4300 per year (although the legislation would require doctors to lie on death certificates by stating that the demises were caused by underlying disease rather than overdose).
If the same number of Californians died of assisted suicide as do euthanasia in the Netherlands–about 3% of deaths, a too low figure as many go unreported–the number of Californians dead by prescribed overdose would be 6,900 each year.
If California ever went full-tilt Netherlands where doctors actually intentionally kill about 14% of those who die each year–when intentional terminal sedation is included–more than 32,000 would die at the hands of doctors each year.
So, we are not talking about a few people committing assisted suicide here and there. The suicide agenda is moving to places where, if it succeeds, the body bags will really begin to pile up.
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.
