Eileen’s life was marked by deep suffering from a young age. She endured abuse, neglect, and trauma that left her vulnerable and struggling with serious mental illness. She needed compassion, care, and protection.
Instead, she was able to obtain lethal drugs under Washington’s “Death with Dignity” law — a law with supposedly strong safeguards.
Her death is a tragedy. And it shows how dangerous these laws, which exist in states across America, really are. Eileen received a deadly drug cocktail even though:
Each of those is a supposed “safeguard” in every state where suicide-affirming care is permitted.
If it was this easy for Eileen, a woman with many daily struggles, to sidestep Washington’s so-called “safeguards,” then it can happen again — to someone else’s daughter, sister, or friend.