Dore Letter Opposing HB 160 (Prior bill)

I am an elder law and guardianship attorney in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.  Like HB 160, our law is modeled on a similar law in Oregon. I urge you to not make our mistake. 

I have three points:

Death Certificate Falsification Requires Bill's Defeat

Kirk Allison, PhD, MS

Dear Legislators:

I directed the Program in Human Rights and Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health from 2006-2016 and am a past chair of the American Public Health Association's Ethics Special Primary Interest Group (now Ethics Section).

While working on my dissertation I was a visiting preceptor (research rotation) at the Hennepin County (Minnesota) Medical Examiner's Office. It was greatly impressed upon me the need for scientific accuracy in the medico-legal documentations of death.

Compassion & Choices Is a Successor Organization to the Hemlock Society

Theresa Schrempp

Dear Editor:

I am a lawyer in Washington State where assisted-suicide is legal. 

Your readers should know that Compassion & Choices is a successor organization to the Hemlock Society, originally formed by Derek Humphry. In 2011, Humphry was the keynote speaker at Compassion & Choices’ annual meeting here in Washington State. In 2011, he was also in the news as a promoter of mail-order suicide kits from a company now shut down by the FBI. This was after a 29 year old man used one of the kits to commit suicide.