Dying Patients Choose to Refuse Food or Fluids
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Terminally ill hospice patients in Oregon are nearly twice as likely to speed their own deaths by refusing to eat or drink than opt for physician-assisted suicide, according to a survey of nurses.
The report, in the July 24 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, found that dying patients prefer to cut food or fluids -- which is legal everywhere in the United States -- rather than rely on a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of narcotics, which is legal only in Oregon.
The Oregon patients said they were ready to die, their quality of life was poor or they were afraid it would become so and saw no point in going on.
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