Source: https://www.choiceillusion.org/2017/04/dore-memoradum-and-legal-analysis.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 19:08:11+00:00

Document:
Oregon and Washington State legalized physician-assisted suicide via ballot measures in 1997 and 2008, respectively. Since then, just three states and the District of Columbia have passed similar laws (Vermont, California and Colorado). These laws also allow euthanasia.
In the last six years, five states have strengthened their laws against assisted suicide. Those states are Arizona, Louisiana, Georgia, Idaho and Ohio.
The bill has an application process to obtain the lethal dose, which includes a written lethal dose request form with two required witnesses. One of the witnesses is allowed to be the patient’s heir who will financially benefit from the patient’s death.
The bill’s lethal dose request process, which allows an heir to act as one of two witnesses on the lethal dose request form, does not promote self-determination. It invites coercion.
With assisted suicide laws in Washington and Oregon [and with the proposed bill], perpetrators can . . . take a “legal” route, by getting an elder to sign a lethal dose request. Once the prescription is filled, there is no supervision over administration. Even if a patient struggled, “who would know?” (Emphasis added).
The person who signs the medical certificate of death of a patient who dies after self-administering a controlled substance that is designed to end the life of the patient in accordance with the provisions of sections 3 to 26, inclusive, of this act shall specify the terminal condition with which the patient was diagnosed as the cause of death of the patient. (Emphasis added).
The significance of requiring a terminal condition to be listed as the cause of death is that it creates a legal inability to prosecute. The official legal cause of death will be a terminal condition (not murder) as a matter of law. More to the point, perpetrators will be let off the hook: The bill will create the perfect crime.
If Nevada enacts the proposed bill, assisted suicide and euthanasia will be allowed for people with chronic conditions such as insulin dependent diabetes. Such persons can have years or decades to live.
Eligible persons may also have years or decades to live because predictions of their life expectancies can be wrong. This is due to misdiagnosis. Predictions are also wrong because predicting life expectancy is not an exact science.
If the proposed bill is enacted, people like Jeanette Hall, with years or decades to live, will be encouraged to throw away their lives.
The proposed bill does not require administration of the lethal dose to be voluntary. There is also no language requiring consent to administration. Without these requirements, the bill’s promotion of patient self-determination is a big fat fib.
The bill refers to the lethal dose as being self-administered, which is a different concept than voluntary or consensual administration. Consider, for example, a man intoxicated on alcohol, who drinks another shot without being aware that it contains the lethal dose. He would be self-administering the lethal dose, but would not be engaging in voluntary or consensual administration.
In Washington State, similar, albeit less wordy language is interpreted by the Washington State Department of Health to require the death certificate to list a natural death without even a hint that the actual cause of death was assisted suicide or euthanasia. The only relevant inquiry is whether Washington’s law was “used.” Compliance with patient protections such as a second doctor is irrelevant.
If Nevada enacts the proposed bill and follows Washington, death certificates will not even hint that the actual cause of death was assisted suicide or euthanasia. This will happen as long as the bill was “used” and without compliance with patient protections. There will be an official legal cover up.
The provisions of sections 3 to 26, inclusive, of this act do not: . . .
Condone, authorize or approve mercy killing, euthanasia [homicide] . . . . (Emphasis added).
Death resulting from a patient self-administering a controlled substance that is designed to end his or her life in accordance with the provisions of sections 3 to 26, inclusive, of this act does not constitute . . . homicide. (Emphasis added).
* By 2000, Oregon's conventional suicide rate was "increasing significantly."
(1) Request a controlled substance that is designed to end the life of the person . . . .
The bill also allows a patient’s heir to be one of two witnesses on the lethal dose request form, which as noted above provides proof of undue influence.
Passing the proposed bill will encourage people with years or decades to live to throw away their lives.
 SB 261 is attached hereto in the appendix, at A-101 through A-132.
 The AMA Code of Medical Ethics, 2016, Opinion 5.7, “Physician-Assisted Suicide. (Appendix, at A-5).
 Id, Opinion 5.8, “Euthanasia," in the appendix, at A-5 (lower half of the page)..
 Nina Shapiro, “Terminal Uncertainty — Washington's new 'Death with Dignity' law allows doctors to help people commit suicide — once they've determined that the patient has only six months to live. But what if they're wrong?,” The Seattle Weekly, 01/14/09; in the appendix (article at A-6, quote at A-8).
 Consider Washington’s law, which was sold to voters as limited to assisted suicide in which a patient would self-administer the lethal dose; the term, “self-administer,” is specially defined to allow someone else to administer the lethal dose to the patient, which is euthanasia. Cf. Margaret Dore, "'Death with Dignity': What Do We Advise Our Clients?," in the appendix at A-9 to A-11.
 The form can be viewed at SB 261, § 13, attached hereto in the appendix at A-106 to A-108. The witness section can be viewed at A-108.
 See SB 261 in its entirety, attached hereto in the appendix at A-101 to A-132.
 Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 11.12.160(2), attached hereto in the appendix at A-17.
 Yanan Wang, “This 80-year-old ‘Black Widow,’ who lured lonesome old men to horrible fates, is out of prison again,” The Washington Post, March 21, 2016. (Attached hereto in the appendix at A-20 through A-22; quote at A-21).
 SB 261, § 1.3, attached hereto in the appendix at A-104, lines 28-33.
 Id., § 10, attached hereto in the appendix at A-105, lines 18 to 22.
 Id., at A-25, ¶ 5.
 Id., at A-25, ¶ 6.
 Id., at A-25 to A-26, Dr. Toffler’s quote begins at ¶ 8. See also ¶ 7 (setting forth the Nevada definition of “terminal condition”).
 Cf. Jessica Firger, “12 million Americans misdiagnosed each year,” CBS NEWS, 4/17/14, attached hereto in the appendix at A-31.
 Nina Shapiro, “Terminal Uncertainty — Washington's new 'Death with Dignity' law allows doctors to help people commit suicide — once they've determined that the patient has only six months to live. But what if they're wrong?,” The Seattle Weekly, 01/14/09. (Excerpts attached in the appendix at A-6 to A-9).
 Declaration of Jeanette Hall, ¶4, in the appendix at A-42.
 The bill uses the word “voluntary” in relation to a request for the lethal dose, not administration. See SB 261 in its entirety, attached hereto in the appendix at A-101 to A-132.
Attached hereto in the appendix at A-109.
 SB 261, Section 1.3, attached hereto in the appendix at A-104, lines 28-33.
 SB 261, § 22.1, attached hereto in the appendix at A-112, lines 8 to 11.
 A copy of the Washington State Department of Health death certificate instruction is attached in the appendix at A-43.
 The Free Dictionary (“Mercy killing” means “euthanasia”), attached in the appendix at A-44.
 FindLaw Homicide Definition (“Homicides include all killings of humans”), attached hereto in the appendix at A-45.
 SB 261, § 25, attached hereto in the appendix at A-113, lines 5-12.
 Id. § 22, at A-112, lines 8 to 11.
 See: “Declaration of Testimony” by Oregon attorney Isaac Jackson, dated September 18, 2012, attached in the appendix at A-46 to A-51 (regarding the run-around he got when he attempted to learn whether his client’s father had died under Oregon’s law - the Oregon Health Authority would neither confirm nor deny whether the father had died under the law); E-mail from Alicia Parkman, Oregon Mortality Research Analyst, to Margaret Dore, dated January 4, 2012, attached in the appendix at A-52 to A-53 (law enforcement cannot get access to information); Excerpt from Oregon’s website in the appendix at A-54 (patient identities “not recorded in any manner”); E-mail from Parkman to Dore, June 27, 2011, attached in the appendix at A-55 to A-56 (“all source documentation” destroyed after one year); and the "Confidentiality of Death Certificates" policy issued by the Oregon Department of Human Resources Health Division, December 12, 1997, (clarifying that employees failing to comply with confidentiality rules “will immediately be terminated”), as published in the Issues in Law & Medicine, Volume 14, Number 3, 1998.
 Ian Dowbiggin, A Concise History of Euthanasia 146 (2007)(“In 2003, [the] Hemlock [Society] changed its name to End-of-Life Choices, which merged with Compassion in Dying in 2004, to form Compassion & Choices.”). Accord. Compassion & Choices Newsletter attached in the appendix at A-57 (“Years later, the Hemlock Society would become End of Life Choices and then merge with Compassion in Dying to become Compassion & Choices”).
 Compassion & Choices Newsletter, in the appendix at A-57.
 Oregon Health Authority Report, attached in the appendix at A-64.
 Again, see Washington State’s probate statute attached hereto in the appendix at A-17.

References: § 13
 § 11
 § 1
 § 10
 § 22
 § 25
 § 22