‘Safeguards are ignored’ around assisted suicide, per new database

More than 14,000 Americans have died by assisted suicide since Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice in 1997, a recent report by Aging with Dignity found.

A group inspired by Mother Teresa, Aging with Dignity recently compiled all reported U.S. assisted suicide data from every state since 1997 in what it said was likely a first-of-its-kind report.

The report found that a recorded 14,446 Americans have died by assisted suicide since 1997 but that “the real number is likely much higher.” The group also reported troubling trends such as drug-related complications and assisted suicide for non-terminal illnesses.

New Mexico and Montana have never released a state report, while Vermont and Washington, D.C., have not released their most recent figures. Assisted suicide was also recently legalized in New York and Delaware.

The report found “utter laxity of state enforcement and reporting efforts, often in violation of state law,” wrote Aging with Dignity research associate Billy Barvick.

The report also found a concerning pattern of assisted suicide being used to treat conditions designated as “other.”

“Across America, non-terminal conditions like lupus, complications from a fall, anorexia, and diabetes all qualified people for suicide-affirming care, and there has been an explosion of people included in the ever-increasing but cryptic designation of ‘other,’” the report read.

Additionally, the group raised concerns about complications from drugs administered during assisted suicide. Only some states track these complications.

“In states like Oregon that track ‘known complication rates,’ i.e., severe complications like seizures and vomiting while ingesting these experimental, unregulated poisons, incidents have climbed as high as 14%,” the report read.

Jamie Towey, president of Aging with Dignity, told EWTN News that “the vulnerable are in danger from these laws.”

“Following Canada’s lead, suicide-affirming care is being normalized in parts of America as just another form of health care,” Towey said. “There is a growing expectation that people seen as a ‘burden’ on society have the duty to die.”

“Safeguards like psychiatric screenings are ignored — Oregon and Washington provide screenings in less than 1% of cases,” Towey said.

“The data we have is bad; the data we don’t have is likely worse,” Towey said. “New Mexico, for example, has never released a public report. In California, a state with over 1,000 deaths annually, hundreds of required forms are missing each year. And across all states, there has been ‘a steep rise in cases where approved terminal illnesses are designated as Other.’”

California has the most assisted suicide deaths of any state — more than 5,000 deaths in less than a decade, and surpassed 1,000 physician-assisted suicide deaths in one year.

“Our hope is that researchers, political commentators, and average Americans will use Aging with Dignity’s data to see for themselves that proponents of physician-assisted suicide aren’t protecting the vulnerable as safeguards fall and eligibility expands,” Towey said.

Matt Vallière, head of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, a New York-based group that opposes assisted suicide as a form of discrimination, said the database shows “how little care is taken when assisted suicide becomes public policy.”

“Data reveal that assisted suicide in the U.S. has increased nearly 1,000% in the last 10 years,” he said. “Yet it grows unchecked with few Americans paying attention or understanding how few safeguards are in place.”

“With this new, powerful tool that organizes all reported information across the states, we need to tell our friends and neighbors what’s happening and encourage them to get involved in informing state lawmakers that assisted suicide is dangerous and removes liability and transparency from medical care,” Vallière continued.

“Meanwhile, given that perpetrating doctors are the only ones reporting this information and that there is a paucity of data on assisted suicide, we need to push for more transparency on this deadly and discriminatory public policy,” Vallière said.

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/safeguards-are-ignored-around-assisted-suicide-per-new-database