Dear Assemblymembers:
I am a lawyer in Washington State where assisted-suicide is legal. Our law is similar to a law in Oregon. Both laws are similar to ABX2-15, scheduled for hearing tomorrow.
I had two clients whose fathers signed up for assisted-suicide. In the first case, one side of the family wanted the father to take the lethal dose, while the other did not. The father spent the last months of his life caught in the middle and traumatized over whether or not he should kill himself. My client, his adult daughter, was also traumatized. The father did not take the lethal dose and died a natural death.
In the other case, it's not clear that administration of the lethal dose was voluntary. A man who was present told my client that the client’s father refused to take the lethal dose when it was delivered (“You’re not killing me. I’m going to bed”), but then he took it the next night when he was high on alcohol.
Legal assisted-suicide can be traumatic for patients and tear families apart.
For more reasons to vote against ABX2-15, please see my legal/policy analysis at http://www.californiaagainstassistedsuicide.org/2015/08/html-version-vote-no-on-abx2-15.html
Thank you.
Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA
Law Offices of Margaret K. Dore, P.S.
Choice Illusion, a non-profit corporation
www.margaretdore.com
www.choiceillusion.org
1001 4th Avenue, Suite 4400
Seattle, WA 98154
206 389 1754 main reception
