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Physician-Assisted Suicide in OregonA Bold Experiment
Ann Alpers, JD;
Bernard Lo, MD
JAMA. 1995;274(6):483-487.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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ON NOVEMBER 8, 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Voters approved the Death With Dignity Act, which allows qualified patients to "legally request and obtain medication from a physician to achieve a humane and dignified death."1 A federal district court has issued an injunction delaying the implementation of the law until the court can decide several constitutional challenges the measure poses.2 Nevertheless, with passage of this measure, the debate over assisted suicide enters a new phase. The issue is no longer whether assisted suicide should ever be legalized, but rather how this initiative will be implemented and whether other states will follow Oregon's example. The response of Oregon physicians to a host of unanswered questions raised by the Death With Dignity Act may affect how citizens of other states view assisted suicide.
Physicians can expect patients with conditions such as
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
From the Program in Medical Ethics (Drs Alpers and Lo), the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (Dr Lo), the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (Drs Alpers and Lo), and the Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (Drs Alpers and Lo).
Footnotes
Reprint requests to Program in Medical Ethics, University of California School of Medicine, 521 Parnassus Ave, Room C 126, San Francisco, CA 94143-0903 (Dr Alpers).
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