SALEM, Ore. — Oregon will no longer require people to be residents of the state to use its law allowing terminally ill people to end their own lives after a lawsuit challenged the requirement as unconstitutional.
The national advocacy organization Compassion & Choices and an Oregon Health and Science University professor of family medicine, Dr. Nick Gideonse, sued Oregon last fall.
In a settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland on Monday, Oregon's attorney general agreed to stop enforcing the residency requirement and to ask the Legislature to remove it from the law.
According to data published by the Oregon Health Authority, more than 2,000 people have died under the Death with Dignity Act since it took effect in 1997.
Advocates said they would use the settlement to press the eight other states and Washington, D.C., with medically assisted suicide laws to drop their residency requirements as well.
