[link|http://www.iaetf.org/orr299.htm|MAkes you wonder what their priorites are]

If a sysadmin were as lax about server security as these guys are about assisted suicide guidelines, would you want him to keep his job?

Excerpt:

The first woman to commit assisted suicide in Oregon had a 2 1/2 week relationship with the doctor who wrote her lethal prescription. Her own doctor had refused to assist her suicide, as had a second doctor who diagnosed her with depression. So she went to an advocacy group, which
referred her to a doctor willing to do the deed.

Hers was not a unique case. The report states that six of the 15 people sought lethal prescriptions from two or more doctors.

Assisted suicide proponents told us this wouldn't happen either. They promised that assisted suicide would only occur after a deep exploration of values between patients and doctors who had long-term relationships.

Thanks to the study, we now know that death decisions are being made by doctors the patients barely know. This isn't careful medical practice; it is rampant Kevorkianism.

The study is as notable for what it omits as for what it includes. Information about the people who committed assisted suicide came from death-prescribing doctors. Treating doctors who did not participate in their patients' deaths -- professionals who could have provided invaluable information about the health of the people who died -- were not interviewed. Nor were the doctors who refused to write lethal prescriptions. Family members were not contacted either.

Significantly, the investigators made no attempt to learn whether the prescribing doctors were affiliated with assisted-suicide advocacy groups, a matter of some importance if we are to judge whether the decisions to prescribe lethally were based on medicine or ideology. Moreover, none of the patients were autopsied to determine whether they were actually terminally ill.