"The Slope Is Slippery"

When Oregon made "assisted suicide" legal, opponents predicted the law would one day be declared discriminatory against disabled people because it required the self-administration of lethal drugs. This would then open the door to state-sanctioned killing. Well, that day is just about here. When Patrick Matheny, dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, decided to take lethal drugs he had received under Oregon law, he could barely swallow. So his brother-in-law, Joe Hayes, had to "help" Matheny die, as he recently told the press. The precise details, Hayes said, were "too personal."

That led to a brief investigation by the Coos County district attorney, Paul Burgett, who declared that Matheny's death conformed to Oregon law, and who further opined that it would be "unlawful" if terminally ill disabled people such as Matheny were unable to "accomplish their objectives." That got the attention of state senator Neil Bryant, who asked deputy attorney general David Schuman for his opinion. Yes, Schuman wrote to Bryant in a letter dated March 15, 1999, a court could indeed find that Oregon's Death With Dignity Act discriminated against disabled persons, either under the state constitution or, ironically, the Americans with Disabilities Act. Bryant further mused that a court could order the state to provide "reasonable accomodation that would enable the disabled to avail themselves of the Act's provisions."

What might that accomodation be? Schuman doesn't say. But if someone has a legal right to be dead and can't do the job himself, what other option is there? A state obligation to kill disabled citizens who ask may be just a lawsuit away in Oregon.