There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow – Orison Swett Marden

T H E   P A T I E N T

– is 18 years or older

It’s true. You can’t legally buy alcohol, but you can request a lethal dose of drugs.

-is diagnosed as “terminally ill.” Which means, per this Ohio bill, that you would most likely die without treatment.

I.e. even if you could live for years with treatment.

– is not mentally impaired

In a bill proposed to the Ohio legislature, a doctor is required to assess the patient to ensure “the individual has the ability to understand the nature and consequences of a health care decision, the ability to understand its significant benefits, risks, and alternatives, and the ability to make and communicate an informed decision to health care providers.  ( Sec. 3792.01 (F) ).

– requests aid-in-dying treatment orally and in writing

As requested by the patient per his/her initiative, or by recommendation of the attending physician.

– is prescribed medication by his or her doctor

In order to take one’s life. Hence the term, “physician-assisted suicide.”

T H E   P H Y S I C I A N

– is a doctor of medicine or osteopathy licensed to practice medicine

Per the Oregon Death with Dignity Act and proposed Ohio end of life options bill.

– “recommends that the patient notifies next of kin” 

Per Oregon’s law 127.815 s.3.01 (f)

– prescribes, or requests a pharmacist to prescribe, the medication

Medication: a drug or drugs given as medical treatment.

Medical treatment: management in the application of remedies.

(Via the Oxford English Dictionary, using the 3rd definition of the term in both cases)

This means a medication prescribed for the purpose of ending one’s life is considered a remedy by physician-assisted suicide laws.

– signs the death certificate

 

What has been, since the earliest days of human civilization, considered a science of remedy and recovery, is now being redefined to include death as a “remedy” to terminal illnesses by some states, and is being considered by others, including Ohio.

Death, what the field of medicine typically works to postpone, can be accelerated if a qualified patient requests it in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and, after some back and forth, California.