I am an attorney in Washington State. Kyle SlavinB次元官网网址檚 claim that our assisted suicide law assures patient choice is incorrect. Gaps in our law instead render our law a recipe for elder abuse.

The most obvious gap in our law is a lack of witnesses at the death. Without witnesses, an opportunity is created for an heir to administer the lethal dose to the patient without his consent. Without witnesses, no one would know what really happened except for the perpetrator. B次元官网网址淒adB次元官网网址� would be dead and unable to give his side of the story. OregonB次元官网网址檚 law has this same gap.

In February, I testified before the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee regarding a proposed bill to legalize assisted suicide, which failed. At the time of the vote, Senator Jeff Essmann made this observation:

B次元官网网址淎ll the protections (in OregonB次元官网网址檚 law) end after the prescription is written. (The proponents) admitted that the provisions in the Oregon law would permit one person to be alone in that room with the patient. And in that situation, there is no guarantee that that medication is self-administered.

B次元官网网址淪o frankly, any of the studies that come out of the state of OregonB次元官网网址檚 experience are invalid because no one who administers that drug against/to that patient is going to be turning themselves in for the commission of a homicide.B次元官网网址�

Assisted suicide is a recipe for elder abuse. It empowers other people to kill you and get away with it. DonB次元官网网址檛 make Washington and OregonB次元官网网址檚 mistake.

Margaret Dore

Seattle, Wash.