Voters to Decide Death with Dignity in Washington State

Life is a series of decisions, choices that we make every day, and they may be simple and easy or difficult and momentous. The decision that a cancer patient might make to end their suffering under Washington's Death with Dignity initiative, I-1000, may be difficult. The decision to vote yes on I-1000 so that the cancer patient can have that choice is easy.

When I first announced my plans to support a death with dignity campaign, I was deluged with stories from people whose loved ones had suffered terribly in the last days of their lives. Many of those people had friends and family in Oregon, or wished that they could have moved their loved ones to Oregon in order to give them better care and more end-of-life choices.

I saw that Oregon's Death with Dignity Act was the right model for Washington, even though my diagnosis of Parkinson's - which is not terminal - means that I am not eligible to request aid-in-dying under the law. Changing the law in Washington to allow death with dignity will not change the way I, or most of us, live our final days - but it will give a small number of terminally ill cancer patients and AIDS patients, and their families, the peace of mind of knowing that they won't be forced to suffer.

Initiative 1000, Washington's Death with Dignity initiative, mirrors an Oregon law that has been in place for over 10 years. After 10 years of experience, we know that the safeguards work and abuses have not occurred.

The opposition to death with dignity uses scare tactics, exaggeration and outright lies to try to frighten voters, but we can look to Oregon to see that opponents' predictions of hypothetical worst-case scenarios did not come true. In fact, the law has been hailed by The Oregonian newspaper - a former opponent - for "elevating end-of-life care" and for pushing Oregon to "lead the nation in providing access to palliative medicine and pain treatment."

Giving patients the right to have an open and honest discussion with their doctor and their family about end-of-life care means better end-of-life care for all patients, including those that choose not to request the life-ending medication. More importantly, it gives patients the comfort of knowing they have an option, whether or not they choose to use it.

Washington's Death with Dignity Act, like Oregon's, has many safeguards to make sure that the terminally ill patient's choice is informed and voluntary:

• The patient must be diagnosed by two doctors as being terminally ill with less than six months to live

• The patient must repeat the request twice, and again in writing, with at least two weeks between requests the oral and written requests

• If either doctor suspects the person is not mentally competent to make the decision, a mental health evaluation is required.

• The patient must be provided with information about and access to pain management and hospice care.

• A prescription may not be written if there is any indication of coercion. Coercion is punishable as a felony crime.

• Only the patient may self-administer the medication.

Thousands of supporters for a Washington Death with Dignity law have shared their personal stories of husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, friends and family who suffered needlessly and who wanted to have the safe and legal option of a death with dignity.

Life is a series of decisions. I choose to support Initiative 1000, Washington's death with dignity law, because I-1000 is a matter of autonomy, liberty and choice.

Click here to make a contribution to support I-1000 and death with dignity. Your donation will help keep end-of-life choices out of the hands of government and religious leaders, and in the hands of terminally ill individuals - where they belong.

Comments

[GLC219]

Hey, I'm a pro-choice democrat and an attorney too. So what. I still don't get to tell you how and when you have to die.

And I'm not dumb enough to think that most kids want to kill their parents. That feeling is usually figurative, and it mostly passes with adolescence. Really, any such heir would be risking a felony conviction, life in prison and a $50,000 fine to hasten the death of a terminally ill patient who will be dead soon anyway. Come on.

Yes we need better health care in the U.S., and the Oregon experience shows that having open and honest conversations about death with dignity can improve pain and palliative care for all patients - including the ones who choose not to use the death with dignity law.

The fact is that Initiative 1000 is a matter of individual rights. It would respect the right, and the ability, of terminally ill patients to decide for themselves how much they have to suffer.

The government should stay out of this very personal decision about death with dignity. The church hierarchy should stay out of it, and well-meaning but misinformed people who think they know better than you do should stay out of it. The decision should be made by terminally ill patients themselves. And that's what I-1000 would allow.

[margaretdore]

I am a pro-choice democrat and an attorney.

Throughout history, some heirs have let financial self-interests cloud their thinking into justifying homicide, that it is “what mom wants.” People v. Stuart, a 2007 case from California, states: “financial considerations, an all too common motivation for killing someone.” In Stuart, it was a financially troubled daughter. She killed her mother with a pillow.

The biggest problem with I-1000 is that there is no requirement that the death be witnessed. Without a witness, there is no assurance that mom will in fact be taking the dose voluntarily. Attorney, Dirk Bartram, made a similar point in his recent letter to the editor in the Seattle PI. He stated:

"[L]ike Oregon's law, I-1000 doesn't require that a witness be present when the lethal dose is taken. Without a disinterested witness, no one . . . would know if the sick person was coerced or tricked into taking the lethal drug by a greedy heir or burdened caregiver willing to rationalize homicide."

Seattle PI, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/379508_ltrs18.html (Scroll down to view).

Former Governor Gardner states that he supports I-1000 because it’s “a matter of autonomy, liberty and choice.” But without a required witness at death, there is nothing to assure this will be the case. I-1000, as written, is fundamentally flawed. People commit suicide now. Let’s help ensure its their choice: Vote NO on I-1000.

Margaret Dore
www.margaretdore.com

[festivusfortherestofus]

Spare me the scaremongering. Death With Dignity has worked for ten years in Oregon, giving families and the terminally ill the peace of mind in their final days.

Name a single "greedy son" who took advantage of DWD in Oregon. Name one.

You can't.

I would never use Death With Dignity- but I'm ok with letting other people CHOOSE what's good for them. Because, afterall, it's about choice.

[jeffgolin]

America’s leaders need to face up responsibly to our long-neglected health care crisis. I-1000 is the wrong approach, offering cheap doctor-approved fatal substances to seriously ill underinsured patients, as a substitute for expensive life-saving treatments. I-1000 teems with perverse incentives. It is a managed care cost-cutter's invention that coerces our caring doctors to undertreat us. Recently, an Oregon woman with lung cancer was notified that the Oregon Health Care Plan would not cover her treatment, but that it would cover doctor-assisted suicide. The lethal substances cost less than $100.00. With this situation, the incentive is created for health care insurers and HMOs to steer Mom or Dad to drink the poison KoolAid, to save insurers money.

Rita L. Marker, Oregon's Suicidal Approach to Health Care, American Thinker, September 14, 2008, http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/oregons_suicidal_approach_to_h.htmll) hit this point squarely. "Oregon seems to have found a surefire way to lower health care costs: Tell the patient you'll pay for drugs that will end her life, but not those that would extend her life….Do assisted-suicide advocates intend this as a cost-containment measure?…Even if its advocates don't intend to follow such a path, the force of economic gravity inevitably leads in this direction”.

I-1000 is counterfeit for genuine health care reform, tricked out with propaganda to look like compassion. Vote NO on I-1000.

[jeffgolin]

I am not one who is motivated by conformity with religious beliefs in my opposition. I have witnessed the glacial downward shift in all of our democratic institutions since my youth. I am a senior parent of an adult autistic child who has been terribly abused and deprived of her rights by our state. I fear for all of our futures if this dangerous law is passed in your state. We are only a generation beyond Hitler’s 1930-40’s Germany, in which citizens deemed unproductive due to age or infirmity were systematically slaughtered in order to save the state money. These Germans were not animals but like us: a highly enlightened, cultured and educated people whose civilization nevertheless ultimately collapsed from such seductive utilitarian beliefs. I believe we should always remember and derive benefit from their sobering example, lest it happen again here.

With our economy stepping on a very large banana peel last week, this slippery slope just got much slipperier. We are rapidly treading out into uncharted and turbulent waters. One now must consider not only the effect of this law in light of Oregon’s experience now, but how irrelevant Oregon could be were there a radical shift. Are we being prepared for this? We have 45 Million uninsured in this country now. What happens to genuine health care reform, if more citizens find themselves unemployed, homeless, or uninsured?

[jeffgolin]

I have serious problems with Governor Booth Gardiner’s arguments for letting us all “Die With Dignity”. Most of all, it’s the “dignity” thing that puzzles me. It seems to me instead a slick ruse for cutting back on the quality of everyone’s medical care, at a time when everything in our economy is being turned upside down.
The totemic argument contained in Gov. Gardiner’s piece is a perfect red herring that should raise alert readers’ suspicions, namely that we purportedly need a doctor to help us commit suicide if and when we choose, and only in this way can we die with “dignity”. One of the dissenters from signing the petition said, “I don’t need a law, I have a gun!” This man came close to the truth. I agree that blowing one’s brains out is pretty undignified, and very messy, too. But it is also unnecessary. Experts agree that pain control has advanced dramatically to the point where it now becomes a non-issue. There are also lots of nice, painless, autonomous, dignified ways including taking too much blood pressure medicine that terminally ill or elderly people already have to choose the time and means of their own death, without using bullets, or asking their doctors or filling out forms. Obviously you can’t be thrown in jail for committing suicide without your doctors’ permission. Why do people think they have to corrupt our caring doctors, who have universally come out against this law, as accomplices in our exits?