QUIET DEATH IN OREGON

Eleven months ago in Oregon, a woman in her mid-80s took some pills
prescribed by her doctor, sipped some brandy, lay back in bed with her
family around her, and died. In that quiet way, after great debate across
an aging nation, a new era began. Oregon had become the only place in the
world in which assisted suicide was legal.

Its voters had twice approved assisted suicide its courts had let the
people's decision stand, its public health bureaucracy had drafted 91 pages
of rules to govern how it would work, and a woman in the terminal stages of
breast cancer had filled out a one-page form, "Request for medication to
end my life in a humane and dignified manner." Two doctors confirmed that
she had less than six months to live.

Some doctors and religious leaders in Oregon remained opposed, some
pharmacists did not want to write lethal prescriptions, and some
legislators threatened to revise the law. These worries were reinforced by
disturbing stories from the Netherlands, where assisted suicide is
technically illegal but nevertheless has been practiced widely for 15
years, supposedly governd by standards established by the Royal Dutch
Medical Association. The stories suggested that some people had been given
assistance in dying even though they had not requested it.

Now, thanks to two recent reports, the experiences in Oregon and the
Netherlands can be compared. A report in the lournal of Medical Ethics
strongly suggests that the conflict between law and practice in the
Netherlands has created a fatal confusion. In one in five cases surveyed
there, euthanasia was performed on patients who had not requested it, and
on patients for whom other, untried treatments for their illnesses were
still available.

In Oregon, by contrast, a report by the State Health Division found that
there had been no run on death, no confusion and no abuse. Only 15 people,
eight men and seven women, were helped to die in 1998. Thirteen were cancer
patients, and many, their doctors said, were decisive personalities, or
people acting on long-held principles. A pattern had begun to emerge of
people dying in gatherings of family after eating barbiturates in chocolate
pudding.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop in Portland has denounced their deaths as
dause for "sadness and shame. " Moral conscience always is grounds for
disagreement. But Oregon seems to have shown, on this most personal and
final of issues, that it is possible to make law and bureaucratic rules
that allow people to take responsibility for themselves, without the state
or anyone else abusing them. That is cause for relief.

THE NEW YORK TIMES.
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