Assisted-dying advocates love to point to the US state of Oregon as a possible model for an assisted-dying law. Yes, they might begrudgingly acknowledge that Canada and the Netherlands have taken things a bit too far. But Oregon – where assisted dying has been legalised for almost 30 years – has struck the ideal balance, they claim, between giving people the option to die and installing rigorous safeguards.
In the UK, supporters of Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to legalise assisted suicide have quickly begun promoting Oregon as the ideal on which our own law should be based. Perhaps we shouldn’t blame them entirely for trying to divert MPs’ attention away from the appalling way assisted suicide has evolved in Canada, where disabled people have been effectively coerced into ending their lives. But it is worth taking a closer look at the reality of what has been happening in Oregon.