Oregon's Measure 16 For Assisted Suicide
In passing the legislation known as Measure 16 in the state of Oregon, were there deceptions involved? Did the media play along with proponents of assisted suicide, denying media coverage to opposing viewpoints? What did proponents do immediately after passage of Measure 16? This paper will seek to satisfy these questions and others.
The "centerpiece" of the campaign to pass Measure 16 was a 60-second television ad featuring Patty A. Rosen (head of the Bend, OR chapter of the Hemlock Society and a former nurse practitioner). In it, Rosen urged the public to "Vote yes on 16" and gave an emotional personal testimonial to the illusion of slipping away peacefully after taking pills:
"I am a criminal. My 25-year-old daughter, Jody, was dying of bone cancer. The pain was so great that she couldn't bear to be touched, and drugs didn't help. Jody had a few weeks to live when she decided she wanted to end her life. But it wasn't legally possible. So I broke the law and got her the pills necessary. And as she slipped peacefully away, I climbed into her bed and I took her in my arms [Rosen's voice cracks with emotion] for the first time in months...." (1)
A statement signed by Rosen also appeared in the Oregon Voters' guide, distributed just prior to the vote on Measure 16: "She [Rosen's daughter] took the necessary medication herself and I was there when she fell asleep for the last time." (2) But it turned out that Rosen's account was different than an earlier version of this "true story" which was so effective in promoting a "pills only" measure to the voters. (3) Two years earlier, during the campaign for California's ballot initiative -- which allowed for both pills and a lethal injection -- Patty Rosen, then Patty Fallon, told a far different version of her daughter's death:
"So she went to sleep. I didn't know about plastic bags. I wish I had. Because...It seemed to be back firing. And I was fortunate enough at the very last to be able to hit a vein right.... [B]efore I could do that, the one son came into the room.... took his hands and held her veins for me.... I said, 'Oh God, she's startin' to breathe again.' And [the other son] said, 'I'll take a pillow.
Unlike other documentations of the trials against those accused, the reader gets to hear a little bit of Sarah Good and what she has to say. In the examination of Sarah Good she states that she is "falsely accused"; the documentation shows the actual conversation that she has and it makes her appear more personable and seeing as how she is claiming innocence, more wrongful charged as well. The defendants' case even more solidified when more examinations are shown in documentation portraying the blamelessness of Sarah Good in that "she never had familiarity att the devell" This raises the question of how Sarah Good can be charged with conspiring with the devil when she has no familiarity of it.
This is a fascinating case because it presents the distinction between a patient’s right to refuse treatment and a physician’s assistance with suicide. Legally, Diane possessed the right to refuse treatment, but she would have faced a debilitating, painful death, so the issue of treatment would be a moot point. It would be moot in the sense that Diane seemed to refuse treatment because the odds were low, even if she survived she would spend significant periods of time in the hospital and in pain, and if she didn’t survive she would spend her last days in the hospital. If Diane were to merely refuse treatment and nothing else (as the law prescribes) than she would not have been able to avoid the death which she so dearly wanted to avoid.
...ing north," he also suggests that movement should be kept to a minimum and gives a list of recommended foods (Aberth, 57). In addition, he suggests that bowel movements must be kept regular and that bleeding is quite possibly ."..the best way to maintain one's health during this calamity" (Aberth, 58). As evidenced in the doctors' prescriptions for how to prevent and/or cure the disease, attempts to combat the Black Death were meek if not completely futile.
This investigation will be an evaluation of President Kennedy’s Executive Committee and the repercussions of the decisions made during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tape recordings and files had been deemed classified, but these files are now released and the decisions made by the government can be assessed to the fullest extent. This can produce major implications regarding the relationship between what was then the Soviet Union and the United States. The public was kept in the dark about several courses of action, including the removal of American missiles and many other surprising judgment calls that may be a cause of international security between the two country’s today.
In 1994, Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act. This law states that Oregon residents, who have been diagnosed with a life ending disease and have less than six months to live, may obtain a lethal medicine prescribed by a physician, which would end their life when and where they chose to do so. This law or act requires the collection of data from patients and physicians and publishes it in an annual r...
"This is a very special day for me. It's the day of my release, the
African Americans were very questionable at first in the Civil War. The Union Navy had been already been accepting African American volunteers. Frederick Douglass thought that the military would help the African Americans have equal rights if they fought with them. Many children helped in the Civil War also, no matter how old they were. Because the African Americans were unfavorable, black units were not used in combat as they might have been. Nevertheless, the African Americans fought in numerous battles. African Americans fought gallantly. Northern leaders also saw another reason to have African Americans in the Civil War is that the Union needed soldiers. Congress aloud them to enlist them because they thought they might as well have more soldiers.
In 522 AD, Justinian met a former actress. Her name was Theodora, and she had given up her original career after becoming a Christian, beginning to make a living spinning wool instead. At the...
African Americans were ready to join the Union Army to fight against slavery in hopes that military service would demonstrate their equality. Several states, to include Louisiana, would form volunteer regiments as a result of the Militia Act of 1862 passed by Congress in July. The 1st Louisiana Native Guard was the first regiment of African Americans in the Union Army.3 This regiment of United States Colored Troops (USCT) was officially formed in September of 1862 and by October of 1862 was assigned duties. Two more regiments would be formed in Kansas and South Carolina.
In her paper entitled "Euthanasia," Phillipa Foot notes that euthanasia should be thought of as "inducing or otherwise opting for death for the sake of the one who is to die" (MI, 8). In Moral Matters, Jan Narveson argues, successfully I think, that given moral grounds for suicide, voluntary euthanasia is morally acceptable (at least, in principle). Daniel Callahan, on the other hand, in his "When Self-Determination Runs Amok," counters that the traditional pro-(active) euthanasia arguments concerning self-determination, the distinction between killing and allowing to die, and the skepticism about harmful consequences for society, are flawed. I do not think Callahan's reasoning establishes that euthanasia is indeed morally wrong and legally impossible, and I will attempt to show that.
The Black Plague was brought upon Europe through the fleas that were on the bodies of rats. As soon as an infected flea bites a single human, anywhere in the world, they are infected with the deadly virus that the fleas carry. The rats with fleas would climb up into the trade boats and get off at another place spreading the disease to many places in the Middle Ages. But the rats were also affected by the fleas’ virus, the rats could survive with a few bacteria in them but eventually, they will die after a few days of also being infected like the humans. The Black Plague was out of three plagues but it was mostly of the bubonic plague which are the least toxic out of the other plague but it is still highly lethal, killing 50% to 60% of its victims, the pneumonic plague which affects the lungs, and the septicaemic plague which affects the blood. The Black plague is one of the most known plagues in history not only for killing millions of people on earth but also because of it spreading rapidly throughout the
...ice. This regiment later became by a strange mutation of history, the first black regiment officially recognized by the Union army.13 It was not until the end of the war that Gen. Lee and President Davis issued the "Negro soldier law" calling for the enlistment of slaves immediately.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, marks the day that WWI descended into armistice. However, the involved countries reached an agreement as to the events following the war on the 28th of June, 1919. The famous Treaty of Versailles was known for its role in ending war. But it was not known for being a double-edged sword, as the ending of war came with the consequence of causing future war. The Treaty consisted of uncontested biases due to Germany's unconditional surrender. The Allies held a gun to Germany's head, with their trigger finger tense. Each article of the Versailles Treaty only made Germany more restless, until 1933 when Hitler produced his own gun and pointed it at the Allies. The Treaty had a series of unproportional effects upon Germany and its people. It caused a rift between the two sides because of the alliances that it formed, brewing tension. The punishments enforced upon Germany were unrealistically huge and it increased the wish among the Germans for the nullification of the Treaty. Finally, the accumulated hatred amongst the people gave birth to potential for a revolution. The Treaty of Versailles is, therefore, an indirect cause to World War II, because of the alliances it caused, the punishments it enforced, and the hatred it developed.
... Affairs and “Physicians’ Experiences with the Oregon Death with Dignity Act” are more valid than How to Die in Oregon for two primary reasons. The authors are credible in the sense that the council and researchers are well educated and know the medical field. Also, the lack of emotional appeal indicates there is less bias in their reports. With How to Die in Oregon, Peter Richardson’s techniques were effective, but rely heavily on the audience having an emotional response to the film. In the future, more research on Washington and Vermont’s experience with assisted suicide will be available, so the effects of its legalization will be easier to detect. Vermont’s location to Oregon relative to Washington’s will also show any regional differences, should there be any. The procedure is carried out using barbiturates, but perhaps more effective methods could be looked i
Cotton, Paul. "Medicine's Position Is Both Pivotal And Precarious In Assisted Suicide Debate." The Journal of the American Association 1 Feb. 1995: 363-64.