My Clients and Their Fathers Were Traumatized by Legal Assisted Suicide

Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA
By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

In Oregon and Washington State, I have had two cases where there was trauma suffered in connection with legal assisted suicide.* In the first case, one side of the family wanted my client’s father to take the lethal dose, while the other side did not. The father spent the last months of his life caught in the middle and torn over whether or not he should kill himself. My client, his adult daughter, was severely traumatized. The father did not take the lethal dose and died a natural death.

In the other case, it’s not clear that administration of the lethal dose was voluntary. A man who was present at a “suicide party” for my client’s father told my client that his father had refused to take the lethal dose when it was delivered, stating, "You're not killing me, I'm going to bed." The man also told my client that his father took the lethal dose the next day when he (the father) was intoxicated on alcohol. The man who related this information later changed his story.

My client, although he was not present at the death, was traumatized over the incident, and also by the sudden loss of his father.
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* To preserve the privacy of my clients, I am not disclosing which case took place in which state.