Oregon Measure 16 for Assisted SuicideIn the passage of the legislation known as Measure 16 in the state of Oregon, was deception involved? Have the media pandered to advocates of assisted suicide by denying media coverage to opposing points of view? What did supporters do immediately after Measure 16 passed? This article will try to answer these and other questions. The "centerpiece" of the campaign to pass Measure 16 was a 60-second television commercial featuring Patty A. Rosen (head of the Bend, OR chapter of the Hemlock Society and a former nurse practitioner). In it, Rosen urged the audience to "vote yes on the 16th" and gave an emotional personal testimony to the illusion of slipping away peacefully after taking the pills: "I'm a criminal. My daughter Jody, 25, was dying of bone cancer. The pain was so bad that she couldn't bear to be touched, and the drugs didn't help. Jody had only a few weeks to live when she decided she wanted to end her life reads and I got her the necessary pills. And as she slipped away peacefully, I climbed into her bed and took her into my arms [Rosen's voice breaks with emotion] for the first time in months... .." (1)A statement signed by Rosen also appeared in the Oregon voter guide, distributed shortly before the vote on Measure 16: "She [Rosen's daughter] took the necessary medications herself and I was there when she last fell asleep." (2) But it turned out that Rosen's account was different from an earlier version of this "true story" that had been so effective in promoting a "pills-only" measure among the voters. (3) Two years earlier, while campaigning for the California ballot initiative - which allowed both the use of pills and a lethal injection - Patty Rosen, then Patty Fallon, told a very different version of her daughter's death: "So he went to sleep. I didn't know about the plastic bags. I wish I had because... it seemed like they were shooting again and I ended up being lucky enough to hit a vein on the right.... [B] Before I could do it, the only son came into the room… took his hands and held my veins… I said, “Oh God, he's starting to breathe again.” And [the other son] said, “I'll take a cushion"..