It has galvanized priests, lawyers, pundits, legislators, professors, regulators. Those asked to implement Oregon's statute are still feeling their way. Although legal, the process of helping someone die has the covert feel of the underground. The advocacy group Compassion in Dying operates out of an unmarked Portland office rather than the address on its letterhead. Those few hospice nurses who attend their patient's death do so secretly, not as professionals but as family friends.
Many doctors are unwilling to participate in any way.
Such hesitancy and confusion is not hard to fathom. Oregon's Death With Dignity Act has dragged onto the public stage a complex, ambiguous, intensely personal matter that for centuries has been handled privately between doctors and patients. It has first politicized, then codified, one of the most basic and enigmatic of human concerns. It has required Oregonians to forge their way through an ethical wilderness. I want to talk about a legal way out.