Does Physician Assisted Suicide lead to Euthanasia?
The prospect of euthanasia was raised by Mr. David Schuman, then an Oregon Deputy Attorney General in 1999, in a letter to a state senator. He wrote that Oregon’s assisted suicide law would in effect be discriminatory because of the Americans with Disabilities Act, because the Oregon law requires self-administration and not everyone is capable of that. “The assisted suicide law would be treated by the courts as though it explicitly denied the ‘benefit of a ‘death with dignity’ to disabled people,” Mr. Schuman wrote. Many doctors are writing prescriptions for lethal drugs to patients for whom they have not previously cared. Dr. Rasmussen had reported that “75% of the patients who come to him regarding assisted suicide are patients he has never seen before.” Regarding the “slippery slope” of assisted suicide, Dr. Rasmussen said, “I think all involved in the Oregon law must recognize that we are on a slippery slope, and we have to be careful with every step. But just because it’s a slippe
