Bulletin 18: Opponents Mislead Again on PAD

28th July 2008

Members of Parliament have recieved another letter from Christine Campbell about Physician Assisted Dying (PAD) in Oregon and the Netherlands, quoting selectively from a paper by Herbert Hendin and Kathleen Foley.

No doubt you don’t have time to digest a detailed critique of this paper, so we will spare you the effort. The paper makes a number of misleading claims against PAD.

It refers to data that is up to twelve years old—in fact, some of it before PAD laws came into effect. It quotes literature up to 33 years old. It contains in places what can most kindly be described as “curious” interpretations of data. And it incorporates material surprisingly similar to that circulated by three Catholic, PAD-opposing doctors from Oregon: Dr Chuck Bentz, Dr Bill Toffler and Dr Ken Stevens, whom Ken Smith (member for Bass) and I interviewed in person in May this year.

Material in these doctors’ papers is in places factually wrong or seriously misleading. We asked Dr Peter Reagan, an Oregonian doctor who has prescribed under their Death With Dignity Act for his response. Here is what Dr Reagan said:

“Some of the cases Dr. Stevens discussed were mine. In those cases it was clear that he was presenting stories that he had no real knowledge of; there was only passing resemblance to what actually happened. In [name withheld’s] case, his family contacted us utterly outraged that Stevens, Toffler and others had publicly distorted his case as much as they had.”

As the debate in Parliament gets underway, you will no doubt receive further supposed “slippery slope” stories from Oregon. But simply because they will be furnished to you in writing won’t make them any truer: there is a large amount of distortion and hyperbole used. Precisely the same “slippery slope” scare tactic was used by opponents of PAD before the Oregon Death With Dignity Act was passed nearly eleven years ago.