Inclusion Daily Express -- Advocates Oppose Former Governor's Assisted Suicide Initiative

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Advocates Oppose Former Governor's Assisted Suicide Initiative
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
January 9, 2008

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON--It looks like the next battles in the struggle over physician-assisted suicide will take place in the state of Washington.

On Wednesday, former Governor Booth Gardner filed papers to start a voter initiative to make the practice legal in the state. If Gardner and his supporters gather 225,000 signatures from registered voters over the next six months, the "Death with Dignity" measure would go to a state-wide vote in November.

The proposal looks much like the law that Oregon voters approved in 1994. That measure protects doctors from criminal prosecution if they prescribe a lethal dosage of a drug to patients with terminal illnesses under certain circumstances.

Washington voters rejected a similar initiative in 1991.

If disability rights advocates and religious groups have their way, it won't pass this time, either.

Joelle Brouner and Duane French, both wheelchair users and members of the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide and the national disability rights group Not Dead Yet, held a press conference.

"I think it's a mistake for the people of Washington to accept death as a progressive health care policy," said Brouner.

"The judgment of people with a terminal illness is often clouded by depression," said French. "Assisting people at their most vulnerable point to end their lives is not compassion, it's negligence."

Current Governor Christine Gregoire said that while she sympathized with "my friend Booth Gardner . . . I find it on a personal level very, very difficult to support assisted suicide."

Gardner, who served as governor from 1985 to 1993, says his fear of losing control of his body has caused him to support the initiative. Ironically, the law would not apply to Gardner, 71, who has Parkinson's disease, which is not terminal.

Several initiatives and legislative efforts to make assisted suicide legal in other states, including California, Hawaii and Vermont, have failed, partly because of opposition from disability rights advocates. They claim that making assisted suicide legal would put people with the most severe disabilities at further risk. They note that in some cases, the safeguards that have been put into laws to protect people with disabilities have been ignored.

Related:
"The campaign begins to legalize physician-assisted suicide" (Crosscut.com)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2008/red/0109a.htm

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