Oregon-Style Aid-in-Dying Initiative Launched in Washington State Compassion & Choices national is working with former Gov. Booth Gardner on an important campaign to pass an Oregon-style aid-in-dying law in Washington State.

A broad coalition of Compassion & Choices affiliates, physicians, nurses, hospice patients, organizations and concerned residents is proposing an initiative for the 2008 ballot. This measure will give tremendous peace of mind to terminally ill patients who face the prospect of intolerable suffering. Specifically, this initiative would allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults in Washington State with six months or less to live the legal choice to access and self-administer life-ending medication under strict medical supervision.

"Oregon’s experience proves legalizing aid in dying brings hope and comfort  to the terminally ill, whether they ever use it or not,” said Barbara Coombs Lee, President of Compassion & Choices. “Washingtonians deserve the same. Freedom of conscience is fundamental to our nation’s greatness. To die in accordance with ones deepest beliefs is surely part of that freedom.”

The initiative would:
• Allow patients with no hope of recovery the choice to end their life on their own terms. Currently our state restricts the legal freedom of terminally ill patients who face a lingering and painful death from making this compassionate, legitimate end-of-life choice.
• Give terminally ill adults the right to end their suffering. When facing the prospect of agonizing pain or loss of dignity at the end of life, patients should be able to make a legal choice to request, receive, and self-administer medication to die on their own terms.
• Require effective safeguards. To participate, a patient must undergo a waiting period, self-administer the oral medication and be: 1) at least 18 years old and a Washington State resident, 2) mentally capable of making and communicating health care decisions, and 3) within six months of death. Two physicians determine whether these criteria have been met.
• Mirror Oregon's "Death with Dignity" Act. Voters in Oregon passed an identical law by initiative ten years ago. The text of the Washington initiative is based on the sound Oregon law.

To qualify the "Death with Dignity" initiative for the November ballot, over 100,000 signatures need to be collected by volunteers by June 30, 2008. At least 3,000 volunteers are needed across the state to cover shifts at stores every week and gather signatures from friends and family.

If you would like to help with the campaign, please contact the political action committee It's My Decision directly at:
It's My Decision Committee
PO Box 21984
Seattle, WA 98111
Phone:(206) 633-2008      
campaign@itsmydecision.org

The New York Times health columnist Jane Brody has written a poignant personal essay advocating the need for choice at the end of life. Brody cites the story of her high school biology teacher, who at 94 asks her to help him hasten his death. She abstains, but contemplates why someone could not take life-ending medication to peacefully achieve an end to suffering.

She thinks about her mother, who attempted to hasten her death without the aid of a physician. Her mother’s life was saved, but Brody asks herself, saved for what? And she cites Dr. Timothy Quill’s experience, who wrote about his role in his father’s experience with aid in dying.

Brody weaves these examples into a thoughtful commentary about what to do when the cost of living outweighs the benefits. At that point, she says, she will be ready to go. She asks that her loved ones will support her when she does.

Read the New York Times story

The Journal News, June 10, 2007 After serving eight years in prison for illegally helping terminally or chronically ill people to die, Dr. Jack Kevorkian has been paroled. Most people are unaware that what Dr. Kevorkian did is not uncommon. In fact, aid in dying is happening: underground, unregulated and illegally. The practice should be legalized with strict regulations and safeguards, as in Oregon. There, physicians may prescribe lethal medicines for their dying patients (which the patients must self-administer) after two physicians have determined that the patient is terminally ill following three requests, one in writing (with two witnesses) and no indication of mental illness. The law has been a model for the nation, with no abuses. None of the problems anticipated by opponents have emerged. Only 292 people, in nine years, have taken the lethal medicines, about one in 800 dying Oregonians. While few have used the law, those who are dying are reassured that if suffering becomes unbearable, they have a last-resort remedy. Almost all who have hastened their deaths have had health insurance and family support. Close to 90 percent were enrolled in hospice, about three times the national average. The law has been used primarily by college-educated, middle-class people who are dying from cancer, heart disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and AIDS. Oregon's law should be replicated nationwide. Doing so would allow dying people to have a peaceful and dignified death, not a continued agonizing dying process, or a life that is ended violently or by illegal means. David C. Leven Pelham The writer is executive director of Compassion & Choices of New York.