On December 7, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to keep the voter-approved, physician-assisted suicide law from taking effect. Two cancer physicians, two nursing homes, and three terminally ill patients challenged Measure 16 in a lawsuit. The Oregon initiative had been passed by a 51 percent vote on November 8.
U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan set a preliminary injunction hearing for December 19 to hear evidence in order to determine the referendum's constitutionality.
The initiative requires a mandatory 15-day waiting period between a patient's request for a lethal dose of medication and its dispensing.
State officials had prepared "emergency regulations" to implement the measure. Public hearings must be held this year in order for the regulations to become permanent. Among the issues to be decided by bureaucrats is what to call physician-assisted death, because Measure 16 specifically forbids the use of the word "suicide" to describe such deaths. Undecided, too, is how to protect the privacy—even from family members—of patients who choose to die under Measure 16.
The electoral initiative had the backing of "right-to-die" advocates such as Derek Humphry, author of the bestseller Final Exit, and the Hemlock Society, headquartered in Eugene. Opponents include evangelical and Catholic groups, which brought in more than $1 million from out of state to finance an opposition campaign.
The measure is the only law in the world that decriminalizes physician-assisted suicide. In the Netherlands, which has nearly 20 years of experience with euthanasia, the nation's law enforcers turn a blind eye to doctor-assisted dying, but it has not been decriminalized.
LAWSUIT CHALLENGE: The Lee v. State of Oregon suit spearheaded by the National Right to Life Committee was filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene on November 23 to challenge the implementation of the law.
The initiative "creates incentives on the part of health care providers and relatives to use duress and undue influence" to force a patient to request assisted suicide, according to one of the plaintiffs, Claudine Stotler, who has incurable cancer. A patient at Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital in Eugene, Stotler's private insurance has been exhausted. She now is a client of the Oregon Health Plan, a state-financed insurance program.
Three other plaintiffs are nursing-home operators who claim Measure 16 infringes on their religious rights. Both Sister Geraldine Bernards, administrator of Maryville Nursing Home in Beaverton, and Fred and June Beck, who own a nursing home in Bandon, say the measure would violate their beliefs by requiring them to permit residents to kill themselves.
ONGOING BATTLE: Nationally, evangelical Protestant and Catholic opponents of physician-assisted suicide vowed to continue fighting the measure and any imitation proposals in other states.
"We are opposed to physician-assisted suicide as part of our overall defense of human life," says Mike Russell, spokesperson for the Christian Coalition in Chesapeake, Virginia. "It is our position that [this] flies in the face of the protection of human life."
"We have really taken a step to the end of this society as we know it," says Judie Brown, president of the American Life League in Stafford, Virginia. "I think our society has been turning, ever so slowly, into a utilitarian society where only the most useful among us deserve respect as human beings." Because a person facing the final months of life requires a tremendous amount of care from loved ones, "This measure is another nail in the coffin of compassion."
But it is Oregonians, both activists and physicians, who have some of the most anguished words about the impact of Measure 16. Gayle Atteberry, spokesperson for Oregon Right to Life, says the initiative could change American society as a whole.
"I cannot believe we are here in this day living it," Atteberry says of Measure 16. "It's a worldwide tragedy because it has opened the door for this death push to make its way into the United States." She says her office has been receiving calls from around the nation where legislatures will be considering similar measures. Seven states have right-to-die measures in the works. "Now that it's happened in Oregon, it's going to be viewed with much more seriousness than it has before."
A gynecologist in Salem, Richard Thorne, says the measure alters the way he practices medicine, as well as its very motivation.
"As a physician, I was always taught to be a healer," Thorne says. "I'm sad and anguished that this chapter of medicine will come to an abrupt end unless challenges in the court overturn it."
On the same day as Hogan's ruling, the Michigan State Senate approved a bill permanently banning assisted suicide by a 26 to 9 vote. The bill is an attempt to stop Jack Kevorkian from assisting terminally ill people who want to end their lives, something he has done 21 times.
If the Michigan house approves the measure it could become law in early March. A temporary ban that was in effect expired in November.
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