I don't believe that she'd had any contact with suicidal people prior to this volunteer work. The Oregon law on assisted suicide requires anyone using it to be quite close to death, and I believe they must also be evaluated for depression. One person she met had cancer blocking their colon, causing them to vomit feces. They were pretty motivated to die immediately, on purely physical grounds.
When the law was proposed, I was nervous that people would opt for it out of financial worries. The immediate result of the law was that pain management and hospice care improved dramatically in the state, which is a sad commentary on how things were done prior to the law passing. I volunteered at a hospice for 5 years, and have seen that hospice is a great help for many people and their families, but not for all.
There has been much analysis of the Oregon experience over the past decade, and the worry about people choosing suicide for financial reasons hasn't been substantiated. The people who apply are typically financially secure and have good insurance. Most people who apply don't actually use the pills -- it appears that having that option, that control, is what they needed.
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When the law was proposed, I was nervous that people would opt for it out of financial worries. The immediate result of the law was that pain management and hospice care improved dramatically in the state, which is a sad commentary on how things were done prior to the law passing. I volunteered at a hospice for 5 years, and have seen that hospice is a great help for many people and their families, but not for all.
There has been much analysis of the Oregon experience over the past decade, and the worry about people choosing suicide for financial reasons hasn't been substantiated. The people who apply are typically financially secure and have good insurance. Most people who apply don't actually use the pills -- it appears that having that option, that control, is what they needed.