The Australian: "Patient’s Recovery Convinces Doctor to Fight Euthanasia Laws"

For a pdf version, click here, to  see article as published, click here.

Dr. Stevens, Jeanette Hall ("I am so happy to be alive!")

When American doctor Kenneth Stevens heard about Victoria’s plan to introduce assisted dying for the terminally ill he couldn’t help but recall the story of his ­patient Jeanette Hall.

Hall, then 55, came to Stevens in 2000 after being diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer in Portland, Oregon, a state that in 1997 introduced laws enabling doctors to prescribe fatal pills to the terminally ill.

Treatment Can Lead to Recovery

Jeanette Hall with her son Scott in 2000.

By Jeanette Hall, updated 06/13/20.

I live in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal. Our law passed in 1997 by a ballot measure that I voted for.

In 2000, I was diagnosed with cancer and told that I had 6 months to a year to live.  I knew that our law had passed, but I didn’t know exactly how to go about doing it. I tried to ask my doctor, Kenneth Stevens MD, but he didn’t really answer me. In hindsight, he was stalling me.

I did not want to suffer. I wanted to do our law and I wanted Dr. Stevens to help me. Instead, he encouraged me to not give up and ultimately I decided to fight the cancer. I had both chemotherapy and radiation. I am so happy to be alive!

This upcoming July, it will be 20 years since my diagnosis. If Dr. Stevens had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead. Assisted suicide should not be legal.