Oregon

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Beligum and Oregon released their annual VAD reports this week.

Belgium and the USA state of Oregon both released their annual voluntary assisted dying (VAD) reports this week. I report on the numbers.

While the Netherlands and Washington state haven't released their 2020 annual VAD report cards yet, Belgium and Oregon have.

Belgium

Back in 2016 I wrote a detailed Whitepaper on assisted dying practice in Benelux, including data up to 2015. In it, I pointed out that in several years' time the trend to increasing rates of VAD would level off, like a sigmoidal (stretched-S shape) curve, as does most human adoption of new behaviours.

That time has arrived. The most recent data from both the Netherlands and Belgium shows that in both countries, the VAD rate, as a proportion of all deaths, has generally levelled off (Figure 1).

dutchbeligianvadlong2021.gif Figure 1: VAD deaths as a proportion of all deaths in the Netherlands and Belgium
Sources: Official Euthanasia Commission reports; Government total death statistics

The cultural rate of VAD in the Netherlands appears to be around 4.3% of all deaths, while in Belgium it's around 2.4%. No doubt these figures will vary slightly over coming years, but shrill pronouncements that the rate would continue to rocket higher and higher are refuted by the evidence.

That Belgium's “level” VAD rate is significantly lower than the Netherlands' despite quite similar (though not identical) laws, suggests that VAD rates are influenced more by cultural and other factors beyond the specific provisions of formal statutes and regulations.

Oregon

Meanwhile, in the state of Oregon, the Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) was revised in 2019. Previously, some people suffering intolerably at the very end of life were excluded from using the Act if they died within 15 days of deciding to use the Act. This was due to a fixed, mandatory 15-day cooling off period. Yet in the last weeks and months of life, an individual's condition can take a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse, so that previously the person may have not qualified for other reasons or felt they still had time to apply for access, and now would not qualify the 15 day cooling off period.

The cooling off provisions were updated by Oregon's legislature in 2019 to allow access without the cooling off period, in cases where the person is, in professional medical opinion — and with a formal declaration to the effect — reasonably likely to die before the 15 days had elapsed.

The revision was in effect for the entire 2020 calendar year.

As a consequence, some people felt they didn't need to apply quite so early “just in case” they might want to use the law, while others who would have been excluded altogether were able to use the law. This accounts for a slight dip in the “old” provisions rate, along with a rise in the total proportion of DWDA deaths (Figure 2).

oregondwdalong2021.gifFigure 2: Oregon DWDA deaths as a proportion of all deaths, new-rule data in light blue
Source: Oregon DWDA annual reports; Government total death statistics

Oregon's overall rate of VAD remains much lower than in the Netherlands and Belgium, whose laws are not restricted to cases of terminal illness.

However, in no case has any parliament legislated to limit cases to a numbered cap. In all jurisdictions, legislation focuses on the conditions under which a person may become eligible to access VAD choice, regardless of the actual numbers requesting and qualifying for access.


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An article in 'Anasthesia' did NOT find high rates of regaining consciousness in contemporary VAD practice.

A recent article by Sinmyee et al, "Legal and ethical implications of defining an optimum means of achieving unconsciousness in assisted dying", published in the journal Anasthesia1 was an attempt to identify a professional standard for inducing and maintaining unconsciousness prior to voluntary assisted dying (VAD) death, a laudable aim.

However, the authors’ underlying premise of contemporary VAD practice failing to reliably maintain unconsciousness — potentially leading to 'inhumane deaths' — is not established by their cited sources. They cite exactly three sources to establish their claim: their citations 31, 32 and 33.

Citation 31 — Iserson et al 1992

This is a qualitative article by Ken Iserson and colleagues.2 Published in 1992, it outlines a single case of assisted suicide, forming the backdrop for several Californian ethics committees to comment.

Not only was this a single case rather tha a sample of dozens or hundreds of cases, but assisted dying was illegal right across the USA in 1992 and earlier. Therefore, the article is wholly uninformative to contemporary practice under assisted dying laws.

Citation 32 — Groenewoud et al 2000

This is a study by Johanna Groenewoud and colleagues.3 Published in 2000, it analyses Dutch data collected between 1990 to 1996 — long before the Netherlands’ 2001 euthanasia Act, which came into effect in 2002.

In 1997 the Dutch medical association (KNMG) formed the Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in Amsterdam (SCEA) network to assist doctors implement the practice more reliably. The successful program was made national (…in the Netherlands, SCEN) in 1999, with a four-year implementation resulting in strong consultation and positive outcomes.4

In addition, the KNMG and Dutch pharmacy association (KNMP) have improved their guidelines for euthanasia practice since 1996: in 1998, 2007 and most recently in 2012.5 Independent studies show that use of opioids (inappropriate method) was high in the Netherlands in 1995-96,6 but replaced entirely with (appropriate) barbiturates and neuromuscular relaxants in reported VAD cases in 2010.7

The most recent published report of the Dutch Euthanasia Commission, which assesses every reported case of VAD, did not note any failures of the VAD procedures.8

Citation 33 — Lalmohamed & Horikx 2010

This is a study by Arief Lalmohamed and Annamieke Horikx, published in 2010, of doctor responses to a survey the KNMP conducted between 2007 and 2009.9 The study reported on issues with the storage, preparation and administration of VAD drugs. It noted that the recommended dose of Thiopental was increased from 1500mg to 2000mg so that patient-dependent dosages need not be calculated.

The study noted one negative experience for some patients: pain on injection of Thiopental. Recommendations were made for preparation and administration of the drug to avoid this problem. No other negative patient outcomes were reported.

The upshot

Thus, of the three sources the authors employed to make the case of a significant and systematic problem in the conduct of contemporary VAD cases, none did so: the first was a single case outside the law in the early 1990s, the second a study from the early to mid 1990s from whence contemporary practice has greatly improved, and the third a 2010 pharmacological investigation that found some patients experiencing pain on injection and recommending improvements to avoid it. Nevertheless, Sinmyee et al concluded that:

“For all these forms of assisted dying, there appears to be a relatively high incidence of vomiting (up to 10%), prolongation of death (up to 7 days), and reawakening from coma (up to 4%), constituting failure of unconsciousness.”

These assertions are highly misleading in regard to contemporary VAD practice.

The most recent Oregon Death With Dignity Act annual report, covering all cases from 1997 to early 2019 reports that just eight of 1,467 deaths where lethal medication was consumed, resulted in the patient regaining consciousness.10 That’s an efficacy rate of 99.5%, a high standard for a medical procedure.

There have been no cases of regaining consciousness in Washington state under their Death With Dignity Act.11

In comparison, regaining consciousness under professional surgical anaesthesia is a problem12 with an incidence rate of around 0.13% in the USA13 though the rate appears to be much lower in the UK.14 Even over-the-counter analgesics like paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin have significant adverse effects rates of 14.5%, 13.7% and 18.7% (respectively).15

From unsubstantiated to polemical

While Sinmyee and colleagues were attempting, via their article in Anasthesia, to argue the case for improved VAD practice, it was inevitable that ginger groups opposing the legalisation of VAD would commandeer cherry-picked extracts from the article to further their cause, painting a picture of disaster and mayhem.

Sure enough, the Catholic-backed Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s Alex Schadenberg ran with it, cherry picking the “190 times higher” rate the authors claim for “failure of unconsciousness” using their invalid citations. Schadenberg conspiratorially concluded that “the laws are designed to cover-up [sic] problems with the law”.16

Also, predictably, Catholic-backed HOPE’s Branka van der Linden followed suit, plucking quotes like “…failure rates of assisted dying by these other methods seems extraordinarily high” without similar context.17

It’s disappointing that the original article with its misleading statistics based on figures plucked from a single historical article and in the absence of considering significant intervening improvements, passed peer review. Its misinformation led to more nonsense being energetically pedalled by anti-VAD campaigners.

 

References

  1. Sinmyee, S, Pandit, VJ, Pascual, JM, Dahan, A, Heidegger, T, Kreienbühl, G, Lubarsky, DA & Pandit, JJ 2019, 'Legal and ethical implications of defining an optimum means of achieving unconsciousness in assisted dying', Anaesthesia, 74(5), pp. 630-637.
  2. Iserson, KV, Rasinski Gregory, D, Christensen, K & Ofstein, MR 1992, 'Willful death and painful decisions: A failed assisted suicide', Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 1(2), pp. 147-158.
  3. Groenewoud, JH, van der Heide, A, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B, Willems, DL, van der Maas, PJ & van der Wal, G 2000, 'Clinical problems with the performance of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands', New England Journal of Medicine, 342(8), pp. 551-556.
  4. Jansen-Van Der Weide, MC, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD & Van Der Wal, G 2004, 'Implementation of the project 'Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in the Netherlands' (SCEN)', Health Policy, 69(3), pp. 365-373.
  5. KNMG/KNMP 2012, Guidelines for the practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, Utrecht, pp. 56.
  6. van der Maas, PJ, van der Wal, G, Haverkate, I, de Graaff, CL, Kester, JG, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, van der Heide, A, Bosma, JM & Willems, DL 1996, 'Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other medical practices involving the end of life in the Netherlands, 1990-1995', N Engl J Med, 335(22), pp. 1699-705.
  7. Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, Brinkman-Stoppelenburg, A, Penning, C, de Jong-Krul, GJF, van Delden, JJM & van der Heide, A 2012, 'Trends in end-of-life practices before and after the enactment of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands from 1990 to 2010: a repeated cross-sectional survey', The Lancet, 380(9845), pp. 908-915.
  8. Regional Euthanasia Review Committees (Netherlands) 2018, Annual report 2017, Arnhem, pp. 66.
  9. Lalmohamed, A & Horikx, A 2010, '[Experience with euthanasia since 2007: Analysis of problems with execution] Ervaringen met euthanastica sinds 2007: Onderzoek naar problemen in de uitvoering', Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd, 154(A1983), pp. 1-6.
  10. Oregon Health Authority 2019, Oregon Death With Dignity Act: 2018 data summary, Department of Human Services, Portland, pp. 16.
  11. Washington State Department of Health 2018, Washington State Department of Health 2017 Death with Dignity Act Report, Olympia, WA, pp. 15.
  12. Cook, TM, Andrade, J, Bogod, DG, Hitchman, JM, Jonker, WR, Lucas, N, Mackay, JH, Nimmo, AF, O'Connor, K, O'Sullivan, EP, Paul, RG, Palmer, JH, Plaat, F, Radcliffe, JJ, Sury, MR, Torevell, HE, Wang, M, Hainsworth, J, Pandit, JJ, Royal College of, A, the Association of Anaesthetists of Great, B & Ireland 2014, 'The 5th National Audit Project (NAP5) on accidental awareness during general anaesthesia: patient experiences, human factors, sedation, consent and medicolegal issues', Anaesthesia, 69(10), pp. 1102-16.
  13. Sebel, PS, Bowdle, TA, Ghoneim, MM, Rampil, IJ, Padilla, RE, Gan, TJ & Domino, KB 2004, 'The incidence of awareness during anesthesia: A multicenter United States study', Anesthesia & Analgesia, 99(3), pp. 833-839.
  14. Thomas, G & Cook, TM 2016, 'The United Kingdom National Audit Projects: a narrative review', Southern African Journal of Anaesthesia and Analgesia, 22(2), pp. 38-45.
  15. Moore, N, Ganse, EV, Parc, J-ML, Wall, R, Schneid, H, Farhan, M, Verrière, F & Pelen, F 1999, 'The PAIN Study: Paracetamol, Aspirin and Ibuprofen new tolerability study', Clinical Drug Investigation, 18(2), pp. 89-98.
  16. Schadenberg, A 2019, Assisted dying can cause inhumane deaths, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, viewed 25 Feb 2019, http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2019/02/assisted-dying-can-cause-inhumane-deaths.html.
  17. van der Linden, B 2019, The "myth" of a pain-free euthanasia death, HOPE, viewed 22 Mar 2019, https://www.noeuthanasia.org.au/the_myth_of_a_pain_free_euthanasia_death.
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'HOPE' is pedalling assisted dying misinformation to politicians again.

The Catholic-backed anti-assisted-dying ginger group, HOPE, was represented for years by Paul Russell. He's retired and Branka van der Linden is now at the helm. But its penchant for pedaling egregious misinformation hasn't changed. Van der Linden recently sent an email to all WA members of parliament, containing three points.

Van der Linden's email reads:

 

Dear [MP salutation],

Did you know that the WA majority report that recommended assisted suicide for WA either dismissed or failed to report on the following statistics?

  • In the Netherlands in 2015, 431 people were euthanised without their explicit consent.
  • In Belgium, 8 per cent of all deaths were without explicit consent from the patient.
  • In Oregon in 2017, the ingestion status of 44 (out of 218) patients was ‘unknown’, making it impossible to ascertain if these 44 patients ended their lives voluntarily and without coercion.

Yours faithfully,

Branka van der Linden

Director, HOPE

 

The trouble is, all three claims by van der Linden are either directly false or egregiously misleading. Here are the actual facts:

FACT: Peer-reviewed scientific research shows that the non-voluntary euthanasia rate of both the Netherlands and Belgium has dropped significantly since their assisted dying Acts came into effect in 2002, consistent with more careful end-of-life decision making across the board.

Fiction 1: van der Linden improperly cherry-picked a single year’s statistic for each country (and, incoherently, a raw count for one but a percentage for the other), implying that lawful voluntary euthanasia increases non-voluntary euthanasia, when the opposite is true.

Fiction 2: van der Linden claimed Belgium’s non-voluntary euthanasia rate is 8%. It has never been anywhere near that figure: the most recent figure is 1.7% and it was 3.2% before Belgium’s euthanasia law.

FACT: Oregon’s health department actively matches death certificates with prescriptions issued for assisted dying. At any time some prescriptions have not been taken and the person may still be alive, and for the deceased, death certificates are still being processed. This naturally means that some prescription/death statuses will temporarily be ‘unknown’ to authorities, even though they will be later determined.

Fiction 3: van der Linden comically implies that this proper process is sinister.

It's curious how 'HOPE' likes to repeatedly demonstrate how HOPElessly uninformed it is about the actual facts and that its methods include cherry-picking data which it thinks supports its anti-assisted dying case, but which don't.

Western Australians deserve better than HOPE's silly propaganda campaign.


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Jones, Paton and Kheriaty's articles demonstrate poor science and multiple, egregious instances of bias.

In 2015, Dr David Jones and Prof. David Paton published an article titled “How does legalization of physician-assisted suicide affect rates of suicide?” in the Southern Medical Journal. The article purported to establish suicide contagion from Oregon and Washington Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) deaths to “total suicides.”  It also purported to establish no decrease in general suicide rates, which Jones & Paton argued should occur by substitution of assisted death for some general suicides. (Notice how these two ‘expected’ results — an anticipated rise and an anticipated fall in suicide rates — are at odds in principle.)

In my thorough and empirically-backed response, I expose the disgraceful playbook of these authors as they shambolically commit no fewer than ten deadly sins against science in the pursuit of their opposition to lawful assisted dying.

Get the full report here

Executive Summary

In 2015, Dr David Jones & Prof. David Paton published an article in the Southern Medical Journal titled “How does legalization of physician-assisted suicide affect rates of suicide?” This study examines the article, as well as an enthusiastic editorial of it by Dr Aaron Kheriaty in the same journal issue, both of which portray “suicide contagion” from Oregon and Washington’s death with dignity acts (DWDA).

However, while contagion from general suicides is a well-established phenomenon, there are multiple sound reasons to reject contagion theory in relation to assisted deaths, including:

  • Most healthcare professionals readily acknowledge key differences in the characteristics of assisted deaths: for example, a fully informed, tested and rational decision with shared decision-making.
  • Those using Oregon and Washington’s DWDAs are, by qualifying for it, already actively dying. Thus, they are choosing between two ways of dying rather than between living and dying.
  • Most of those using the DWDA discuss it with their families (expected, peaceful death), whereas most general suicides occur in isolation and without discussion (unexpected, often violent death).
  • Multiple studies show that while families of general suicide experience complicated bereavement, families of assisted dying cope at least as well as, and in some cases better than, the general population or those who considered but did not pursue assisted death.

 
Even if “suicide contagion from assisted dying” theory were sound, direct evidence from official government sources shows that the number of potential suicides in Oregon in 2014 would have been fewer than 2 in 855 cases: undetectable by general modelling methods.

Jones & Paton’s article title conveys an air of skilled and scientific neutrality. However, close examination of the article, and Kheriaty’s editorialisation of it, reveals least ten serious flaws or ‘scientific sins.’

The authors demonstrated little understanding of the complex issues surrounding suicide, willingness to unjustifiably equate assisted dying with general suicide, contentment with failing to search for, consider or include contrary evidence including from sources they cite to argue their case, unreasonable trust in a model that couldn’t hope to legitimately resolve their premises, satisfaction with executing their model amateurishly, a disposition to overstate confidence of causation in the absence of meaningful statistical correlations, and an inclination for emphasising results in accordance with their theories while de-emphasising or ignoring others.

Any of these flaws was serious enough to invalidate Jones & Paton’s article and Kheriaty’s conclusions of it, yet there is not one deadly flaw: there are at least ten.

Their claim of a supposed 6.3% suicide contagion rate from assisted dying in Oregon and Washington is a conceptual and mathematical farce.

The Southern Medical Journal is a peer-reviewed journal. However, it is difficult to reconcile the rigorous standards and sound reputation that peer review is intended to maintain, with the numerous, egregious flaws in this study and its dissemination.

Rather than inform the ongoing conversation about lawful assisted dying, the Jones & Paton and Kheriaty articles misinform and inflame it.

Given the numerous egregious flaws, both articles ought to be retracted.

 

Get the full report here

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The deeply-flawed Jones & Paton, and Kheriaty articles purporting to show suicide contagion.

In the ongoing political campaign against assisted dying law reform, opponents have spread one piece of egregious misinformation after another. One of the most common is supposed “suicide contagion” from assisted dying laws to general suicide, a theory popularised by Catholic Prof. Margaret Somerville. Despite the nonsense of her claim being comprehensively exposed, she still believes that her opinion “will prove to be correct.” Two journal papers published in 2015 purported to, but didn't, establish suicide contagion in Oregon and Washington states.

Note: the report is now published here.

Assisted dying law reform opponents are still relying on a 2015 paper by Catholics David Jones and David Paton, bolstered by a glowing editorial of it written by Catholic psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty, published in the Southern Medical Journal, as continued ‘proof’ of suicide contagion theory, at least in respect of USA states Oregon and Washington (since data from other lawful jurisdictions contradicts the theory).

Jones & Paton’s article reported the use of econometric modelling to test for ‘suicide contagion’ from Oregon and Washington’s Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) laws. But, in an exposé to be published this week, no fewer than ten ‘deadly sins’ of the study are peeled back to reveal the rot within.

The very deep flaws and biases of the original articles include:

  • Cherry-picking information from cited sources to argue their case, while omitting information from the same sources that contradicted their case;
  • Including test and control subjects whose consequence was likely to maximise the likelihood of finding a positive association;
  • Demonstrating a poor understanding of suicide and its risk and protective factors and failing to control for most confounding effects in their econometric model ‘pudding’;
  • Overegging the “causative suicide contagion” interpretation when no correlation between assisted dying and general suicide rates was found; and
  • Failing to use direct, robust and readily-available evidence that showed their study couldn’t possibly have hoped to return scientifically valid “contagion” proof.

 
The USA’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), of which Oregon is a founding member, shows that even if “assisted dying suicide contagion theory” were true, fewer than 2 of 855 Oregon “total suicides” in 2014 could have been attributed to “contagion” from DWDAs.

Further, both Oregon and Washington state rankings for suicide rates have improved, not deteriorated, since their DWDAs came into effect, while the suicide ranking for a relevant control state — Oklahoma — has deteriorated substantially over the same time.

Ultimately, through numerous and deep methodological flaws, the Jones, Paton and Kheriaty articles reveal a bias to promote “assisted dying suicide contagion theory” while ignoring the robust evidence from multiple lawful jurisdictions, including in their own ‘study,’ that contradict it.

The exposé, titled “The ten deadly sins of Jones, Paton and Kheriaty on ‘suicide contagion’,” will be published by DyingForChoice.com later in the week.

Note: the report is now published here.


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Professor Margaret Somerville makes an indefensible 'suicide contagion' claim.

Catholic ethicist Professor Margaret Somerville claims that every assisted suicide jurisdiction shows 'contagion' to the general suicide rate. The empirical evidence contradicts her claim.

Get the full report here.

Professor Margaret Somerville, currently Professor of Ethics in the School of Medicine at the Catholic University of Notre Dame Australia,[1] has enjoyed ongoing publication of her opinions, with few challenges published to date.

Back in 2007, Somerville, then a Professor of Ethics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, appeared as an expert witness in an Iowa District Court case. The court comprehensively rejected her testimony, determining that she:

“…specifically eschews empirical research and methods of logical reasoning in favour of ‘moral intuition.’ She has no training in empirical research…”

Professor Somerville, I argue, has again fallen short on empirical research and logical reasoning. To illustrate, I will analyse her claim, published in an opinion piece in ABC Religion and Ethics that:

“…the general suicide rate has increased in every jurisdiction that has legalized assisted suicide.

While her claim may be her own personal opinion, she has presented it expressly stating that she is a Professor of Ethics at her current university of employment, lending the claim perceived authority.

This report demonstrates how her claim and her defence of it are contradicted by multiple sources of empirical government and other primary research evidence. It also demonstrates that she failed to engage appropriate scholarly standards that require the active search for, acquisition and analysis of all reasonably available relevant data in an attempt to answer a particular question.

In making her claim, Prof. Somerville:

  • Cites ‘supportive’ data from lawful jurisdictions while overlooking other data, sometimes even in the same data set, that are inconsistent with her claim;
  • Cites as supporting evidence an econometric modelling study that did not find a statistically-significant relationship between assisted dying law and the general (non-assisted) suicide rate;
  • Fails to consider data from all jurisdictions with assisted suicide laws while making a claim about them all — overlooking Switzerland, whose empirical data is clearly at odds with her claim;
  • Repeatedly cites non-academic anti-euthanasia lobbyist Mr Alex Schadenberg (who also cites her) as a source of evidence for her claim and who in turn quotes a television source and another lobbyist’s opinion to underpin his own beliefs about ‘suicide contagion’; and
  • Conflates voluntary euthanasia (physician-administration) with assisted suicide (patient self-administration) such that her argument, at least in the context of Belgium and the Netherlands, is substantially about the novel concept of ‘euthanasia contagion’ rather than the more familiar ‘suicide contagion’ expression she uses.
     

These findings are consistent with the Iowa court’s ruling that Prof. Somerville sometimes relies on ‘moral intuition’ rather than sound empirical research and logical reasoning.

My report also draws a number of connections between those advancing misinformation on assisted dying ‘suicide contagion,’ and Catholic identity. Catholic identity is not a reason to reject arguments, but it does help identify the source of a majority of ‘suicide contagion’ misinformation.

Finally, I argue that the appropriate course of action for Prof. Somerville is to retract her ‘suicide contagion in every jurisdiction’ claim.

 

Get the full report here.


[1]   Not to be confused with another Professor Margaret Somerville, who is Director of the Centre for Educational Research at Western Sydney University.

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Oregon (left) and Washington legalised assisted dying by ballot in 1997 and 2008 respectively. Photos: Oregon Department of Transportation; Cacophony.

A scientific study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that residents of both Oregon and Washington states, which legalised assisted dying in 1997 and 2008 respectively—as well as establishing formal advance directive programs—are far more likely to experience the kind of death they prefer, and with better access to palliative care, than is the average USA resident.1

It's well-established that most westerners would prefer to die peacefully at home rather than in a medicalised or other institutional setting. Yet it is recognised by doctors and families alike that there is a kind of medical ‘conveyer belt’ to acute care at the end of life that tends to shunt the dying individual through to ICU—a place where more and more burdensome medical interventions are administered with less and less likelihood that they’ll actually provide any benefit. These kinds of deaths, with vigorous and invasive procedures performed on a frail person approaching a natural death, can lead to longer and more complex bereavement recovery for surviving loved ones.

It’s also claimed by opponents of assisted dying law reform that assisted dying is a ‘competitor’ of palliative and hospice care, and that legalisation of assisted dying would result in the deterioration or at least stunting of palliative care services.

This latest study, including longitudinal data, provides further evidence that such claims are not only false, but that the legalisation of assisted dying improves the focus on all end of life decision making, whatever those decisions are.

Avoiding burdensome and questionable invasive care

ICU was used in the last 30 daysFigure 1: ICU was used in the last 30 days of life
Percent of fee-for-service Medicare service beneficiary patients

Figure 1 shows that the ‘shunting’ of dying patients to ICU in the last 30 days of life is significantly lower in Oregon, which legalised assisted dying in 1997. Oregon also established a statutory comprehensive advance care directive (Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment, or “POLST”) program earlier than other states, in 1993. Washington, which piloted a POLST program in 2000 and formally endorsed it in 2005 — and legalised assisted dying by ballot in 2008 — was already trending down from the national average (close to it in 2000), as public discussion of end of life decisions ratcheted up in the lead-up to reform. Since the POLST endorsement and ballot reform, Washington has continued to trend well below the national average.

Facilitating a non-institutionalised death

Patient was discharged from hospital in the last 30 days of lifeFigure 2: Patient was discharged from hospital in the last 30 days of life

Figure 2 shows that both Oregon and Washington have continued to trend above the national average for facilitating patient wishes to die at home after a stay in acute care in the last 30 days of life.

Hospice care received at home

Dying patient received hospice care at home Figure 3: Dying patient received hospice care at home

Figure 3 shows that by 2000, Oregon was already providing home hospice services at 2.1 times the national average, but that as the national average plateaued from 2005, the rate in Oregon continued to rise significantly, reaching 2.5 times the national average in 2013. To qualify for an assisted death, Oregon and Washington residents must be certifed by their doctor as expected to die within six months—which qualifies the patient for free hospice care.

Washington was close to the national average on the delivery of home hospice care prior to assisted dying law reform, beginning to deviate as conversations were held about permitting assisted dying and its POLST program was endorsed in 2005, increasing to 1.8 times the national average in 2013.

Death preferred at home

The individual died at home Figure 4: The individual died at home

Figure 4 shows that both Oregon and Washington states continue to facilitate a private home-based death, according to patient and family wishes, at a rate considerably higher than the national average.

Conclusion

The results of this USA study mirror the kinds of findings from Dutch and Belgian research, which I have previously published,2 and another USA report from the Journal of Palliative Medicine which placed both Oregon and Washington amongst the top eight states for palliative care access in hospital settings.3 This study furthers these insights by showing that access to palliative care services in home settings is also significantly higher than the national average in Oregon and Washington.

Assisted dying opponents’ claims that legalising assisted dying would result in a deterioration or stunting of end of life decisions and in particular access to palliative care are contradicted by the data from lawful jurisdictions.

 

References

  1. Tolle, SW & Teno, JM 2017, 'Lessons from Oregon in embracing complexity in end-of-life care', New England Journal of Medicine, 376(11), pp. 1078-1082.
  2. Francis, N 2016, Assisted dying practice in Benelux: Whitepaper 1, DyingForChoice.com, viewed 13 Nov 2016, /resources/fact-files/assisted-dying-benelux-whitepaper-1.
  3. Morrison, RS, Augustin, R, Souvanna, P & Meier, DE 2011, 'America's care of serious illness: A State-by-State report card on access to palliative care in our nation's hospitals', Journal of Palliative Medicine, 14(10), pp. 1094-1096.

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Alex Schadenberg's latest shrill and misleading article

Catholic Canadian anti-assisted-dying blogger Alex Schadenberg is at it again. This time he’s parading his ignorance and spreading bull about a potential change in Oregon’s assisted dying legislation.

The Bill

Mr Schadenberg correctly reproduced Section 3 of Oregon Senate Bill 893, which states:

SECTION 3. An expressly identified agent may collect medications dispensed under ORS 127.815 (1)(L)(B)(ii) and administer the medications to the patient in the manner prescribed by the attending physician if:

(1) The patient lawfully executed an advance directive in the manner provided by ORS127.505 to 127.660;

(2) The patient’s advance directive designates the expressly identified agent as the person who is authorized to perform the actions described in this section;

(3) The patient’s advance directive includes an instruction that, if the patient ceases to be capable after medication has been prescribed pursuant to ORS 127.800 to 127.897, the expressly identified agent is authorized to collect and to administer to the patient the prescribed medication;

(4) The medication was prescribed pursuant to ORS 127.800 to 127.897; and

(5) The patient ceases to be capable.

Mr Schadenberg fails to mention Section 2, which states:

SECTION 2. Section 3 of this 2017 Act is added to and made a part of ORS 127.800 to 127.897.

What is the ORS range?

And what precisely isORS 127.800 to 127.897’ (ORS = Oregon Revised Statutes)? Why, it’s the entirety of Oregon’s existing Death With Dignity Act!

In other words, a patient still has to be terminally ill, fully informed, made a formal request, the request assessed as genuine and free, waited the required cooling off period, made another formal request, been assessed as qualifying all the requirements by multiple doctors, has legally appointed an agent expressly for the purpose of administering lethal medication pursuant to the Death With Dignity Act, have their medication prescribed (immediately before which the attending physician must again verify that the patient is making an informed decision) and then the patient ceases to be capable, before the agent may then administer.

Mr Schadenberg exposes that at best he fundamentally doesn’t understand the Bill, nor took much if any effort to do so.

That’s hardly the free-for-all Mr Schadenberg posits in his shrill blog implying that ‘assisted suicide and euthanasia’ was being extended to ‘incompetent people’ without further qualification; falsely insinuating that any incompetent person could then obtain assistance for suicide or euthanasia.

No ‘defence’

If Mr Schadenberg were to claim that he really meant ‘only within the scope of the current Death With Dignity Act,’ and that he’s been taken out of context, that simply won’t wash. Bill 893 makes a provision only for someone else to administer the lethal dose (that is, what Mr Schadenberg refers to as ‘euthanasia’) if the patient ceases to be capable after already qualifying under the existing Act. The Bill does not permit patient self-administration: that is, using Mr Schadenberg’s own language, ‘assisted suicide’—which he expressly refers to in his article.

Parading a non-existent extension of ‘assisted suicide’ clearly exposes that at best he fundamentally doesn’t understand the Bill, nor took much if any effort to do so.

Wrong again…

He also got it completely wrong as to who may administer when the patient ceases to be capable:

“The bill enables the doctor to administer…” — Alex Schadenberg

However, if you read Section 3 of the Bill (above) that Mr Schadenberg himself reproduces, you’ll see clearly that the patient must expressly identify a particular person ('agent') to administer lethal medication should the patient cease to be capable. The patient may appoint his or her doctor, but can appoint in their Advance Care Directive anyone to be the agent; including a trusted and loved family member. The only particular requirement for the agent’s administration is that he or she must “administer in the manner prescribed by the attending physician.”

Conclusion

But let’s not the facts get in the way of a gratuitous reaction trumpeting shrill hyperbole and headline, shall we Mr Schadenberg?

And as usual, Catholic Australian anti-assisted-dying blogger Paul Russel has dutifully reproduced Mr Schadenberg’s farce.


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Assisted dying rates in Dutch-speaking cultures (orange bars) are much higher than elsewhere.

In this whitepaper, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) primary empirical data on assisted dying is analysed — including with new and advanced approaches — to provide fresh insights into contemporary practices. Investigation reveals that the assisted dying rate in Dutch-speaking cultures appears to be uniquely higher than in other cultures irrespective of the permissiveness of the legislative framework, yet is still practiced conservatively.

Download a full copy of the Whitepaper here: PDF (648Kb).

Summary

This new compilation and unique analysis of primary research data from statutory authorities and the peer-reviewed literature provides fresh insights into assisted dying practice in Benelux, including:

  1. Rates of assisted dying in the Netherlands and Belgium have followed an expected sigmoid curve, now beginning to level out.
  2. Several factors have contributed to the higher increase in the Netherlands rate, including recovery from a suppression of cases immediately following statutory reform, a rise in cancer diagnoses, and an increase in granting of assisted dying through new visiting teams launched in 2012.
  3. Both Netherlands and Belgium doctors demonstrate caution if not conservatism when assessing assisted dying requests.
  4. Despite most assisted dying occurring in cases of cancer, fewer than one in ten cancer deaths in the Netherlands and one in twenty in Belgium is an assisted death.
  5. Other conditions such as degenerative neurological, pulmonary and circulatory illnesses each account for a very small proportion of the increase in cases since legalisation in Benelux.
  6. The assisted dying rate in dementia and other mental illness is very low despite controversy around—and a tiny rise in granting of—such cases.
  7. The hypothesis that females or the elderly would be ‘vulnerable’ to assisted dying law is contradicted by the data.
  8. The rate of non-voluntary euthanasia has decreased significantly in both the Netherlands and Belgium since assisted dying was permitted by statute.
  9. Assisted dying rates in Dutch-speaking cultures are significantly higher than in non-Dutch cultures, seemingly unrelated to the permissiveness of the jurisdiction’s legal framework.

 

beneluxratessmall.gif
Benelux country reported assisted dying rates (as a percentage of all deaths)
as at 2014. The three countries have similar assisted dying laws.
 

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St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Donaldytong

Against current moves to legalise assisted dying, Australian Catholic Father John George invokes Nazi Germany, resorts to ad hominem attacks to dismiss those who disagree with him, and demands that the Pope’s edicts are binding on everyone regardless of their own faith or world view.

On 24th September 2016, Journalists Greg Brown and Rick Morton published an article in The Australian, Victorian coroner credited with turning tide on euthanasia, summarising recent Australian moves to legalise assisted dying choice.

Catholic Father John George commented on the article online, quoting four sections of the Catholic Church’s catechism that prohibit assisted dying (sections 2276–9).

Pushback

Other readers of The Australian remarked that they respected his view for himself but they had no interest in the Pope’s views given the readers were not Catholic. In fact, repeated polls in Australia have shown that even the great majority of Catholics (three out of four) do not agree with the Vatican on the matter of assisted dying, a matter which Fr George dismisses merely as ‘fickle votes and polls.’

I would remind Fr George that these are not fickle: Australian public opinion in favour of assisted dying choice has been consistently in the majority for now more than four decades.

Fr George further quoted Catholic sources, for example the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre in Perth, Australia, which he failed to mention is, literally, an agency of the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth. He also selectively quoted Palliative Care Australia, failing to mention that they have acknowledged that not all pain and suffering can be eliminated at the end of life, even with the best palliative care.

Ad hominem attack

In response to a rising tide of objections to his musings, including from Mr Ian Wood, a fellow Christian and co-founder of Christians for Voluntary Euthanasia Choice, Fr George resorted to the ad hominem attack: to attack the person (or persons) rather than the arguments. He said:

“The pro euthanasia claque here make professional Nazi propaganda expert Goebbels look like a 5th rate amateur.” — Father John George.

For anyone in the dark, a claque is a group of sycophants hired to applaud a performer or public speaker. How rude. Fr George seems to have neglected to reflect that it is he who is hired to promote the performance of the Vatican. I applaud his right to do so, and I do not compare him to a treacherous propagandist in a murderous wartime regime in order to dismiss his arguments: I address the arguments themselves.

Nazi Germany

Fr George makes repeated mentions of Nazi Germany as a core reason to deny assisted dying choice.

In contrast, several years ago I was chatting at a conference with the pleasant and engaging Peter McArdle, then Research Director of the Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference. He volunteered that he very much disliked the “Nazi Germany” argument so often used in religious circles, and wished it would stop because in so doing it meant they’d already lost the debate.

I agree. It’s a lazy and indefensible argument: that rational people in a functioning democracy must be denied choice for themselves on the basis of what some murderous regime did against others at the point of a gun.

Indeed, to rely on such a standard would be to equally argue against the right to religious practice, because the Catholic Church, through its inquisition practices (medieval C12th, papal C13th, Spanish C15th, Roman and Portuguese C16th) relied on torture and resulted in confiscation of property and at least tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of executions for witchcraft and heresy.

Ultimate hubris

But the real crux is that Fr George then unequivocally demands that:

“Principles elaborated by the pope are universally applicable.” — Father John George.

This ultimate hubris reveals a profound lack of self-reflection, both personally and organisationally. Even entertaining for a moment the premise that one individual (or even organisation) can tell everyone on the planet how they must live their lives, how would we choose that person or organisation? Why is it less valid for the head of any other branch of Christianity, of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism (or any other religion) or an agnostic (which I am) or an atheist, to set such rules for everyone, overriding other deeply-held beliefs and values?

A keener example of ‘blinded by faith’ would be hard to find.

Conclusion

I argue that Fr John George displays some of the gravest hubris of some members of the Catholic church. I respect and applaud his world views for himself and those who wish to subscribe. But using canonincal arguments (that is, religious arguments demanded as universally true by virtue of the supposed authority that dispensed them) is probably a major contributor to the current flight of people away from organised religion.

More happily, such an attitude is also contributing to accelerating the legalisation of assisted dying choice because folks can see these arguments for what they are. For that I doff my hat to Fr George.


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