Surely they can come up with a better phrase than that. Why not "Sent to the Happier Hunting Ground"?
Posted on 10/17/2006 4:39:47 PM PDT by wagglebee
The Oregon Department of Human Services has determined that it will begin referring to "physician assisted suicide" as "physician assisted death" on official reports.
The change comes as backers of the assisted suicide law claim the original term is offensive to those who kill themselves under the statute. In fact, Compassion & Choices, a national group that backs euthanasia and assisted suicide, pressured state officials to make the change.
Gayle Atteberry, the executive director of Oregon Right to Life called the wording difference "outrageous" in comments to the Statesman Journal newspaper.
"They have changed it to a euphemism to make it more palatable," she said. "Do they think it is going to make it easier for people to kill themselves?"
The change may make it easier for those people who kill themselves with a doctor's help to feel good about their actions.
Before she took her own life in August, the newspaper reports that Charlene Andrews of Salem told the National Press Club, "Please do not call it suicide. That is an insult to my fight against cancer. With cancer, we know when there are no treatment options."
But Mike Gander of Salem, who took care of his son and mother in law while they were dying, told the Statesman Journal the phrase is just a euphemism put forward by those who don't want to confront the reality of what they're doing.
"It's like using the terminology 'choice' when it comes to abortion," he said. "No one wants to use the word 'abortion'; they want to use the word 'choice.' But the terminology -- whether accurate or inaccurate -- still results in the same thing. 'Physician-assisted death' is the same as suicide."
In May, the Senate held a hearing on problems associated with the state's assisted suicide law.
Diane Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet, a leading disability rights group said that the longer the Oregon law stays around the more disabled patients are feeling obligated to end their lives when they become a so-called "burden" to their families.
"What looks to some like a choice to die begins to look more like a duty to die to many disability activists," she said.
Meanwhile, Wesley Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, who is a leading monitor of end of life issues, said the state is poorly monitoring assisted suicide and problems associated with it because it relies on doctors to self-report about the deaths.
So far, some 246 people have used the Oregon assisted suicide law to end their lives since it went into effect in 1998.
In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that patients had a right to refuse lifesaving medical treatment and, in 1997, the court ruled unanimously that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide but that states may ban or allow the practice.
Related web sites:
Oregon Right to Life - http://www.ortl.org
What's wrong with just saying homocide?
Ping.
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How the he*l can people that commit suicide be offended by anything!
Who is this aimed at? Are they trying to drum up business by removing the "stigma" against suicide?
My personal term for this is consensual homicide. I'd love to see a law passed that as long as this is legal, the only accepted method was to blow the "suicide's" head off with a 12 G. at close range. The results would be the same, but maybe people would quit lying to themselves about what was really being done.
Beat me to it. That was my first thought. Their argument is BS. They just know that the current wording raises LOTS of shackles and they are trying to homogonize it just like saying "Right to Life" instead of Abortion on Demand.
Wow...have they got that rationale twisted!!!
Promoters of evil invariably use deceit and fraud as basic tactics.
"physician assisted death"
Would HAVE to be a homicide!
Surely they can come up with a better phrase than that. Why not "Sent to the Happier Hunting Ground"?
The change may make it easier for those people who kill themselves with a doctor's help to feel good about their actions.
Oregon Ping
Bingo.
BTW, did you see that Catholic Alliance "Common Good" voters crap? Check out the pdf. to see it, as well as Media Center.
http://thecatholicalliance.org/new/
How about "Murder by Doctor" to keep the MD after their name, or new titles for those that make killing a speciality!
Political correctness run amok...
I think that it violates their Hippocratic Oath...
“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.”(Banquo, act 1, scene 3, William Shakespeare's Macbeth)
My sister-in-law recently had a physician assisted death. No quotes necessary. There was no suicide. No murder. She died a natural death, while under the care of her doctor. Physician assisted suicide is a completely different thing, and should be called what it is. Let's not pretend the doctor is assisting the patient at the time of death.
If they are that offended or suffering pangs of guilt, maybe they shouldn't kill themselves. Maybe the problem is with people having second thoughts. To remove doubt, take the word suicide out. Oregon obviously wants the plan to be a success. Second thoughters might be ruining their plans.
Let's call people who change their minds about assisted suicide "second thoughters". People don't realize they can change their minds, even if they do a living will which is a bad idea or even if they are an organ donor - they can change their mind. Second thoughters have a right to be heard.
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