Colorado’s Assisted Suicide Reports Show Incomplete Data, No Mental Health Evaluations– www.lifenews.com

Public health data from Colorado shows that patients approved for assisted suicide likely are not being screened by mental health experts, and the assisted suicide reports that doctors submit to the State are sometimes incomplete.

Colorado legalized assisted suicide under its 2016 End-of-Life Options Act. Since then, the State has recorded nearly 2,600 prescriptions for lethal drugs under the law.

Assisted suicide’s supporters have claimed the law contains strong safeguards to protect vulnerable patients, but statistical data from the State of Colorado raises questions about whether that really is the case.

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For example, last year 580 patients were approved for assisted suicide in Colorado. Out of all of those patients, only one reportedly was referred to a mental health professional for evaluation. That’s due in part to the fact that mental health evaluations are optional in Colorado. Under the End-of-Life Options Act, mental health referrals typically are limited to cases where the physician prescribing the drugs has doubts about the patient’s decision-making ability. Doctors are not required to get a mental health professional’s opinion about whether the patient may be suffering from mental illness.