Latest Oregon Report Shows Sobering Statistics on Assisted Suicide

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Oregon’s 2025 “Death with Dignity Act” report shows a staggering number of people ended their lives under the state’s assisted suicide law last year.

In 1997, Oregon became the first state in America to legalize physician-assisted suicide, and since then policymakers have worked to make it easier for people to receive a prescription for lethal drugs.

Family Council has written repeatedly about the problems with Oregon’s assisted suicide law over the years.

Oregon’s 2025 reports show that a record 637 lethal prescriptions for assisted suicide were written last year.

Of the people who ended their lives in Oregon, most did not indicate they were concerned about managing their pain in the face of a terminal illness.

Instead, loss of autonomy, being less able to engage in activities that make life enjoyable, and loss of dignity were the reasons most people cited for requesting a lethal prescription.

Only two people were referred for psychiatric evaluation last year before ending their lives.

Nearly 40% said they were concerned about being a burden to family, friends, or caregivers, and more than one in 20 people (6%) who opted for assisted suicide in Oregon last year said they were concerned about the financial implications of medical treatment. That’s deeply concerning.

Patients who are lonely and feel like they are losing control over their lives need counseling and support — not a deadly prescription.

Experience has shown that assisted suicide doesn’t help people who are sick or dying, and it doesn’t remain limited to a few cases.

In the U.S., insurance companies have refused to pay for patients’ medical care, but have offered to cover assisted suicide drugs.

Patients in Europe and Canada reportedly have been denied care or actively euthanized as a result of assisted suicide laws.

Stories like these are part of the reason why Family Council has strongly opposed assisted suicide legislation in Arkansas.

Being pro-life means believing innocent human life is sacred from conception until natural death.

Just like abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide violate the sanctity of innocent human life.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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The Bible Does Not Support Abortion: Guest Column

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In February, James Talarico, a U.S. Senate candidate from Texas, claimed that the biblical story of the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke supports his proabortion position. On the Joe Rogan podcast, Talarico asserted that because the angel sought Mary’s consent, a woman has a right to choose her own procreative destiny. 

The most obvious flaw with this assertion is that the angel did not ask Mary’s permission. In fact, the angel of the Lord said, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” Mary submits to accept God’s will, but the only person with questions in that conversation was Mary. The angel declared what was going to happen. Mary was humbled and accepted it as the calling on her life. 

The deeper flaw in this and most other proabortion arguments is the assumption that whatever is in the womb is not a human life worth protecting. The inherent value of life in the womb—as evident throughout Scripture from Psalms to Jeremiah to Isaiah to Job to Joshua–is something Christians have insisted upon since the earliest days of the Church. To deny that theological reality, as Talarico did, is also to commit a Christological heresy. In the same chapter in Luke, Elizabeth declared that her baby, who was John the Baptist, leapt in her womb when he heard the voice of “the mother of her Lord.” In other words, both John in the womb and Elizabeth out of the womb sensed that the Lord was present though still in His mother’s womb.  

Other passages of Scripture that are wrongly used to argue for abortion include Exodus 21. In the middle of several laws covering violent crimes, the text reads, “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined.” If there is harm, the passage continues, then there is a harsh penalty.  

Pro-abortionists argue in this passage that only harm to the woman matters and the child is not as valuable. However, the more reasonable interpretation is if,because of a fight, a woman goes into premature labor and the baby lives, then “there is no harm.” Thus, there’s a financial penalty. If the baby dies or is injured—“if there is harm”—the attacker should face punishment up to death. 

Another example is Numbers 5. In a list of rules, Moses provided a test for a husband’s claim of his wife’s unfaithfulness. The accused woman was to take an oath of innocence and drink a mix of water and dirt from the tabernacle floor. If innocent, nothing would happen. If guilty, then, among other things, she would become infertile. 

It is a strange passage, and theologians differ on how best to understand it. Some suggest it is a psycho-somatic test to root out a woman’s guilty conscience. Others think it a sneaky way for a defenseless woman to escape her husband’s jealousy. Pro-abortionists assert that it is an example of an abortion ordered by God’s law. For that to be the case, however, the punishment would involve the death of a baby. However, the curse reference here is not the ending of a current pregnancy but the prevention of future ones. 

These etymological gymnastics attempts aside, the Bible is consistent. Human life is sacred. In the womb, babies are valued, purposed, and yes, human. Throughout the biblical text, including war and sacrifice as in Leviticus, 2 Kings, or Jeremiah, the worst crimes and horrors someone can commit are to murder children. In no way does God’s Word dismiss, much less justify, the slaughter of the innocent. 

Contrary to Talarico’s claim, the message of Annunciation Day is not that life and death is left to our choice. Rather, it is in God’s hands. Even in the womb of His mother, Jesus Christ was the Messiah, fully God and fully human. Even in the womb of our mothers, we are fully human, in God’s image.

Copyright 2026 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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Abortion Drugs Are Not About Women’s Health

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Our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom recently released a video highlighting how abortion drugs are not about women’s health.

Right now, Alliance Defending Freedom is working in court to protect women and unborn children from mail-order abortion drugs.

In June of 2022 the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. That good decision let several states — including Arkansas — enforce pro-life laws generally prohibiting abortion.

But in January of 2023 the Biden Administration’s FDA permanently removed the in-person dispensing requirement for RU-486 and made abortion drugs available by mail.

In October of last year, ADF attorneys and the State of Louisiana sued the FDA for letting abortionists mail these drugs across state lines.

In February, Family Council joined 43 other pro-life leaders in an amicus brief supporting ADF’s lawsuit against the FDA.

The amicus brief argues that states have the authority to restrict or prohibit abortion, and that the FDA’s abortion drug rules undermine states’ authority to enforce their own pro-life laws.

New evidence shows that abortion drugs are much more dangerous than the FDA previously thought.

A recent study by the experts at the Ethics and Public Policy Center found abortion drugs are at least 22 times more dangerous than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration labeling indicates. Nearly 11% of women experience serious health complications from abortion pills — including sepsis, infection, and life-threatening hemorrhage.

These drugs should not be available at all — much less through the mail. We appreciate ADF’s commitment to defending life in federal court.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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