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Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, speaks on the Oregon House floor in 2008.

(Stephanie Yao/The Oregonian)

An Oregon legislator's proposal to liberalize the Death with Dignity Act has run into opposition from both supporters and critics of the pioneering law.

Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, introduced a bill that would expand the time that terminally ill patients have to obtain a lethal prescription from their expected last six months of life to one year.

Greenlick said he drafted House Bill 3337 in large part because he believed that patients with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, needed more time to access the law allowing terminally ill patients to end their lives.

With amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, "by the time you get within six months, you often don't have the manual dexterity to swallow a pill or even still have the reflex to swallow," said Greenlick, a retired health researcher.

Greenlick's proposal was quickly criticized by Oregon Right to Life, which charged that it would only add to the problems the group sees with the existing law. More "mistakes will be made and deaths will increase dramatically," charged the group's executive director, Gayle Atteberry.

Advocates also expressed opposition to Greenlick's proposal, saying it was unnecessary and would hurt efforts to pass similar laws in other states.

"We think it's a very bad idea," said Steve Telfer, president of the board of the Portland-based Death with Dignity National Center.

Telfer said the six-month limit was "a very appropriate time frame" for the law and that extending it to a year would send the wrong message to lawmakers considering similar laws in other states.

"You just run the risk of the slippery-slope argument big time," Telfer said.

Oregon voters adopted the nation's first physician-aid-in-dying law in 1994, but it didn't take effect until 1997 -- after voters reaffirmed the measure for a second time and the U.S. Supreme Court turned back challenges to the law.

Washington and Vermont have since adopted similar laws, and the issue is now under consideration by legislatures in several other states. Activists' arguments have been bolstered by the national publicity surrounding 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, who had terminal brain cancer and ended her life last year in Oregon after lobbying nationally for Death with Dignity laws.

From 1997 to the start of February this year, 857 people ended their lives in Oregon using lethal prescriptions , according to a report from the Oregon Public Health Division.

The report shows that cancer is by far the leading terminal illness of those who use the Death with Dignity Act. But ALS is the second most common illness cited by those ending their lives. Telfer said this shows that the law works for those with the disease.

Atteberry said that Greenlick may talk about ALS, but his bill opens the door wider for those with any apparently terminal disease.

She argued that it's even harder for a physician to predict that someone is in the last year of life.

Greenlick, who chairs the House Health Care Committee, said he now has to assess whether his legislation can gain any traction.

UPDATE: Lance Christian, executive director of the ALS Association's Oregon and southwest Washington chapter, said he was familiar with the bill. But he said that the six-month limit "hasn't really been an issue" limiting the ability of ALS patients to access the law. He noted that he has worked with many patients who have ended their lives under the law.

-- Jeff Mapes

503-221-8209

@Jeffmapes