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Government

Physician Behind Oregon Assisted Suicide Law Kills Himself Using Procedure Approved By Law

Mar. 12, 2012 11:59pm Mytheos Holt

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP/The Blaze) — A Portland physician who campaigned for Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act has died using lethal chemicals obtained under the law he championed. He was 83.

A spokesman for the organization Compassion and Choices says Peter Goodwin died Sunday at his home surrounded by his family. Goodwin told the Oregonian last month (http://bit.ly/Axamvh ) he’s battled a rare brain disorder for six years.

Oregon was the first state to allow terminally ill patients to take their own lives with the help of lethal medications supplied by a doctor.

The act was the result of a long campaign by Goodwin, and he’s called it his greatest legacy.

NPR reports Goodwin had been planning the act for some time:

Dr. Peter Goodwin practiced as a family physician in Oregon and Washington for five decades. Well after Oregon’s Death with Dignity law passed, he was diagnosed with a rare brain disease known as corticobasal degeneration. As it progresses, the condition can affect balance, muscle control and speech as well as cognitive abilities. Last September, Goodwin said that when he received his diagnosis he began to think about the right time to use the law to end his own life. But back then, the right time still seemed far away.

“I don’t want to die,” he said then. “No way do I want to die. I enjoy life; I enjoy company; I enjoy my friends. I have many, many, many friends.”[...]

On Sunday, he swallowed a fast-acting barbiturate prescribed by his doctor. He died less than half an hour later.

Pro-assisted suicide organization Compassion and Choices released this video tribute to Goodwin:

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Comments (71)

Mary Just
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 11:15pm
Hear the English accent. This guy was a UK progressive liberal socialist.

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neocon1
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 7:43pm
the coward had to have a physician prescribe him pills.
Why not a .45? a glass of antifreeze? 20 Tylenol’s? 15 sleeping pills?
Noooo the GOVERNMENT has to help this pathetic loser do him self in.

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ROMANS 10-9
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 2:48pm
bu bye.

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- neocon1
  Posted on March 13, 2012 at 7:43pm
  Bub Byah is right
  
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TheSoundOf Truth
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 2:06pm
Imagine people buying this stuff and passing it off as a designer drug at a nightclub…perfect terrorist plow.

If you don’t think people can get phoney prescriptions for this stuff, pull your head out of the sand.

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barbpatton
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 2:03pm
After reading this article and the remarks made by various readers, I have just one thing to say, as follows: Who of us who have read this article have not, just once in our lifetime, contemplated suicide? had an illness and wished ourselves dead??? come on people… you know it is true. Best be quiet and await your time of death with fear and uncertainty – or do as the Dr. did, accept responsibility of your own life and the demise of self.

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vtxphantom
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 1:12pm
He did it the legal way otherwise we would need to put his corpse on trial. That could be messy. May God have mercy on your soul. RIP

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bullcrapbuster
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 12:09pm
It is a slippery slope.

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catholicschoolmom
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 11:51am
How ironic. He sent himself to hell.

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PrayNC
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 11:40am
He met a “peaceful death”….better think again! He made the devil jump up and down with joy! Man had a twisted and sick mind.

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Hickory
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 11:21am
He had a brain disorder many, many years ago. Anyone could see that.

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Rodney777
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 10:49am
I have one thin to say to people who kill themselves ” BYE “

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hi
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 9:53am
WE had a 24 year old friend who died of cancer. decades ago Before he died he said he was going to do doctor assisted suicide. We thought that was crazy and selfish until we met with him at his going away party. He was in soooooo much pain and had so much suffering. His arm almost broke when we helped him up because tumors were everywhere.
I think ending his pain and suffering was the right thing to do and not a sin, although I struggle with it. You can’t possibly understand unless you know someone with terminal cancer like this.

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bluntforce
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 9:33am
What took him so long?

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cranberry
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 8:43am
So sorry. It takes faith and guts to live until God calls for you. Don’t take the easy way out. Life is
so precious, He must not have believed in God because he will never meet God now that he did this.

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- Jenny Lind
  Posted on March 13, 2012 at 8:53am
  Really? Do you make God’s appointments? Who are you to judge how God will judge? Remember, He judges by the contents of our hearts, too. And He commands us to “judge not”.
  
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- neocon1
  Posted on March 13, 2012 at 7:14pm
  jenny lid
  
  BS you speak out of your azz
  
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PointBreak
Posted on March 13, 2012 at 8:01am
Why is it that we’ll allow animals the right to die quickly, painlessly and compassionately – but we won’t extend the same courtesy to humans? I have an illness that’s rapidly getting worse and my greatest fear is being strapped to some hospital bed when the end comes with no chance of recovery and having medical science drag it out for as long as they can.

The religious zealots hiding behind their dogma and passing judgement on this guy seem like characters from a bad time travel movie where they go back to a place where they still think the world is flat and they burn witches. You people sound like psychos. Sure, instinctually nobody wants to die, but to drag out someone’s misery because you believe some robed hippie lives in the clouds and might be upset about it is bat **** crazy.

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- Jenny Lind
  Posted on March 13, 2012 at 8:49am
  We have a great system now for terminaly ill, called hospice. You can die in your own bed at home with your family there and friends-whoever you want. They use as much pain control as is needed to keep you comfortable, and having experience with hospice nurses, I can only tell you they are angels without wings. My experience with my mother for 16 months was with visiting nurses and hospice nurses, and I am an advocate of any and all donations to these wonderfull people. The we had hospice for three days until my husband passed and they too were beyond wonderfull. Their entire goal is to make the end of your life as pain and fear free as they can, and it works. Find out now about them and you will have a great peace and can enjoy your time here that you have left. God bless you.
  
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