Assisted Suicide Laws:
The Doctor, Not the Patient, Decides

Jeanette Hall
“If my doctor had believed in assisted suicide, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Oregonian Jeanette Hall was diagnosed with cancer in 2000, and asked her doctor to prescribe lethal assisted suicide drugs. Fortunately, her doctor had a longstanding relationship with her and recognized the request as a cry for help, assessing his patient’s real need in spite of the law. He encouraged her to pursue treatment and she is still alive today! Unfortunately, not everyone has such a dedicated physician.
In Oregon, depending on the year, 60%-90% of patients received a lethal prescription from a doctor referred by non-profits that push for assisted suicide laws, not their own physicians.*
*The concentration of Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Prescriptions & Deaths from a Small Number of Prescribing Physicians