Noriko Takida
10/27/98

In this article, "Oregon Woman Takes Advantage Of Assisted Suicide Law," Don Knapp informs us about a woman who was the first used the assisted suicide law in the U.S.. The woman suffered from cancer and could not enjoy her life any more. Therefore, she decided to take an overdose of medication. In the U.S., Oregon is the first state where this law became legal. Under this law, If a patient has a serious disease and can not live more than six months, and is clear that he or she wants to die, then the patient can take advantage of this law. This woman asked three physicians for help, but the first two of them did not want to help her commit suicide. The Archbishop of Oregon's Roman Catholic church is afraid to make people feel it is better to die than to burden their family. This is not what the law makers are saying.

When I was in level 3, we had a discussion about assisted suicide in Speaking and Listening class. I did not know about this law before that time, and I was interested in this topic because we do not have this kind of law yet in my country. That is why I chose this article. I read this article and felt that there was not very much information about the woman using this law. This makes me feel this article is not very good. However, there is more information about this law; for example, it tells us what kind of people can take advantage of this law. It is a good article from this point of view. Personally, I do not think I would use this law even if I had only six months to live and suffered from pain. Because I have never thought about death, I can not imagine it. However, I think we should have the right to death with dignity. If a person can not take care of him or herself and family members always have take care of the person, It is very hard on the family. The person may not want to burden his or her family. I am not sure if this law should be legal or not.

1. prescribe (v)-----to say what medicine or treatment a sick person should have
prescription(n)
prescriptive(adj)

"The killing dose of barbiturates was legally prescribed by a doctor."

2. attend (v)-----to take care of someone
attendance(n)
attendant(n)

"Her original attending physician said he was not interested in participating and so she went to another attending physician."

3. advocate (v)-----to strongly support a particular way of doing things
advocate(n)
advocacy(n)

4. dignity (n)-----calm serious behavior that makes people respect you
dignify(v)
dignified(adj)

"But she has been a leading advocate for Oregon's death with dignity act."

5. burden (v)-----to make someone worry or cause trouble for him or her
burdensome(n)

"We are very fearful more people are going to feel that what we are trying to tell them its better to die than to burden us with your weakened life."

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