X-Message-Number: 8927 Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 14:04:50 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Oregon update From the Eugene Register-Guard (December 10): Residency language vague in suicide law By Joe Rohas-Burke To qualify for doctor-assisted suicide in Oregon, the new "Death with Dignity" law says you must be a state resident. But the law fails to define what it takes to qualify as a "resident," or even what state agency will be responsible for enforcing the requirement. As a result, officials aren't sure how the law can stop terminally ill residents of other states from coming to Oregon to hasten death. "We don't have a clue," said Dr. Katrina Hedberg of the Oregon Health Division, the agency assigned to keep and publish annual records of assisted deaths. Residency, it turns out, is a concept that state laws define many ways. To get an Oregon driver's license, all you need is an Oregon address. Hunting or fishing licenses require six months of residency. For in-state college tuition, you've got to live in Oregon for a least a year and demonstrate that you aren't here just for an education. Even if the residency criteria for assisted death were explicit, Hedberg said doctors would likely still have to face some excruciatingly difficult decisions. "It's one thing if the person has been your patient for 20 years," she said. "What if it's an AIDS patient who's got two months to live and has come home to Oregon to die with parents?" To accommodate such cases, the drafters of the assisted suicide law purposely left residency ill-defined, said right-to-die activist and writer Derek Humphry. "It was left deliberately undefined so that the broadest interpretation could be put on it," he said. The lack of clear residency requirements was one of many problems that lawmakers set out to solve last summer. Opponents of assisted suicide managed to stop amendments to the law and pushed through a repeal campaign, which failed in a 60 percent to 40 percent vote in November. Now the Legislature isn't likely to amend the law until it reconvenes in 1999. And lawmakers assigned to implement the suicide law say they are wary of making any changes. "When we start to make sure there are actually safeguards, we are going to be attacked by the proponents for imposing more restrictions, making it a no-win situation," said Ken Baker, R-Clackamas, co-chairman of an implementation subcommittee. Gov. John Kitzhaber has asked the state Justice Department to try to clairfy the residence question. "We're looking at the language in the law to determine whether this is something that could be defined by administrative rule," said Justice Department spokeswoman Kristen Grainger. If not, then the residency will remain vague until the Legislature enacts tighter language - or the issue goes before the courts. An out-of-state resident, for instance, could sue the state of Oregon to try to gain access to assisted death. But even if a doctor were to flagrantly ignore the residency requirements, it's not clear how licencing or law enforcement authorities would find out so they could take action. Doctors must report assisted deaths to the Health Division, but the records are confidential and health officials said they aren't going to audit for lawbreakers and report them to police. "The answer is no," Hedberg said. "If we did that then no physician is going to send us any more forms or any more information." Humphry said few if any out-of-state residents are likely to travel to Oregon for assisted death, given the costs, the complications of health insurance, and the difficulties of travelling for someone who is seriously ill. Nor are Oregon doctors likely to have much interest or incentive to give lethal prescriptions to newcomers from out of state, he said. "They don't want to do it unless it is their patient," he said. "That's why the medical profession hates Kevorkian - he helps strangers to die." The Oregon Medical Association, the state's largest doctor group, has issued guidelines on assisted suicide that say, "A long-standing relationship with the patient is the ideal." In practice, how closely doctors hew to the ideal remains to be seen. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8927