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The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has published a report including the number of individuals known to have taken their lives under California's end of life bill. The law requires the CDPH to provide annual reports about the effects of the law. 111 people have died after taking prescribed aid-in-dying drugs from June 9th, 2016 to December 31st, 2016 (subsequent reports will cover full calendar years):
The law — which allows terminally ill adults to obtain life-ending drugs from their doctors — took effect on June 9, 2016. Between then and the end of the year, 191 people received prescriptions under the act and 111 people died after taking prescribed aid-in-dying drugs, according to a report released Tuesday by the California Department of Public Health.
In that time period, a total of 258 people began the end-of-life process under the law, which requires patients to make two verbal requests to their doctors at least 15 days apart.
Previously: California Legislature Approves Bill Legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide - UK Reject Similar Law
California to Permit Assisted Suicide Starting June 9th, Could Raise Smoking Age to 21
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @01:32PM (15 children)
What happened to the other 80 prescriptions? That seems like either a lot of failures, or a lot of dangerous drug prescriptions in the wild if they were fulfilled but not used.
The followup: Did the 'killed themselves' have to be used in the title? Seems like there are less charged ways of saying it, like '111 people have been assisted in choosing their own time to die.'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @01:46PM (1 child)
Yes because we don't want to call a spade a spade. Let's obfuscate and make it dreamy.
I find it funny that so many people support this "right to choose"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kanweg on Friday June 30 2017, @05:44PM
I find it not so funny that there are people who want to deny other people the right to choose.
....
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday June 30 2017, @02:00PM (6 children)
This was my first question to, what happened to the 80 people that went thru the process and got the prescription but then didn't die. Did they have a last minute change of heart? Are they still sitting at home starring at the pills? Did they die of their illness or? Is there an illegal market for "death drugs"?
Next I was wondering if this has had any significant reduction in the "normal" suicide rate. People that now get these kind of drugs would they have killed themselves anyway or are these new people that would have never contemplated the idea of suicide previously?
Which opens up more questions - why is it 90% white people? Are the blacks, hispanics and asians offing themselves in some other fashion or don't they get old enough to have these issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @02:06PM
Probably the same reason suicide rates among White people have jumped in the past few years.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Sulla on Friday June 30 2017, @02:07PM (2 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Ages [wikipedia.org]
Yes - Whites make up 80% of the population of those 80 and older.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday June 30 2017, @02:42PM (1 child)
It's more than that, according to a table in the page you linked: 87.10% of those aged 80–84 and 88.44% of those 85 or older.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday June 30 2017, @03:19PM
Absolutely right.. don't know why I typed 80, thanks!
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 30 2017, @02:11PM
Bill Cosby dates. The woman doesn't change her mind thirty years later, and call it rape.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday July 01 2017, @05:42AM
In Canada, the people who took this to the Supreme Court (lost the first time, won the second time) were people who were incapable of committing suicide, paralyzed and similar. The law here is for Dr assisted suicide, so a Doctor actually applies the drugs.
The Supreme Court ruled that if your quality of life is the shits, you should be able to die. The government passed a law that said, if you're terminal, with a shitty quality of life, you should be able to die. It's going back to the Supreme Court as there are people with things like Lou Gerigs (sp?) disease that completely remove any quality of life without being particular terminal.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pendorbound on Friday June 30 2017, @02:04PM
After the script is written, you have the choice to take the drugs or not. It's relatively safe to infer that the 80 people changed their mind. That goes a long way to refuting the idea that these laws "pressure" people into dying. 80 people were thinking about it, got so far as to have the drugs in hand, but still had the freedom to change their mind before going through with it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 30 2017, @02:24PM (2 children)
I'm looking at it again. 258 people started the process, 191 got the drugs, and 111 died. The gap between 258 and 191 is the wait for approval. The 80 gap could be explained in part by people who haven't gotten their affairs in order yet, as well as people who got cold feet. Maybe some of them got the drugs in preparation for dying but have not reached the stage in their terminal illnesses where they would actually want to use it.
Complaining about the title? Give me a damn break. I could have used the word 𝕊𝕌𝕀ℂ𝕀𝔻𝔼𝕊 but I chose not to.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:34PM (1 child)
Precisely, some of them have the prescriptions, but haven't yet used them. And there's probably some that either died prior to taking them or decided that they couldn't go through with it.
The prescriptions themselves are dangerous, but there's any number of dangerous pills out there, even some over the counter medications are extremely dangerous when abused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:39PM
This, predominantly you'd think, since we're talking about terminally ill people.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday June 30 2017, @04:15PM
Some may have died before they took the meds. Others, faced with the concrete reality of the act may have changed their minds.
I wouldn't worry too much about the 80 bottles containing a lethal dose of medicine out there, it's just a drop in the bucket.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 01 2017, @07:23PM
self empowered life transitioning