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Legalized Physician Assisted Death in Oregon—Eighteen Years’ Experience

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Assistierter Suizid: Der Stand der Wissenschaft

Zusammenfassung

Five US states have defined a legal pathway for their residents to choose physician-assisted death (PAD). The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was passed by citizen’s initiative in 1994 and, after a series of legal challenges, enacted in 1997. In 2008, through a voter-initiated referendum, Washingtonians passed an almost identical law. In 2009, the Montana Supreme Court held that a terminally ill, mentally competent patient’s consent to physician aid-in-dying protected the physician against a charge of homicide. In 2013, Vermont legalized PAD, the first to use the traditional legislative process (Vermont Health Department). California’s legislature also passed a PAD law in 2015, which is likely to be enacted in 2016. No other form of PAD – that is physician prescription and patient consumption of medications for the sole purposes of causing death – is legal in the United States at this time, though studies support that in other states physicians rarely prescribe medications to hasten death outside the law.

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Acknowledgement and Disclaimer

This material is the result of work supported with resources and the use of facilities at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA

    Linda Ganzini

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  1. Linda Ganzini
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Correspondence to Linda Ganzini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Palliativmedizin, Abteilung für Palliativmedizin und supportive Therapie, Klinikum der Universität Lausanne (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Gian Domenico Borasio

  2. Institut für Ethik, Geschichte und Theorie der Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, München, Germany

    Ralf J. Jox

  3. IMGB, Universität Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

    Jochen Taupitz

  4. Institut für Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin, Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Urban Wiesing

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Ganzini, L. (2017). Legalized Physician Assisted Death in Oregon—Eighteen Years’ Experience. In: Borasio, G., Jox, R., Taupitz, J., Wiesing, U. (eds) Assistierter Suizid: Der Stand der Wissenschaft. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Deutsches, Europäisches und Internationales Medizinrecht, Gesundheitsrecht und Bioethik der Universitäten Heidelberg und Mannheim, vol 46. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-52669-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-52669-9_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-52668-2

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