Life Issues / Family Ethics Political Action Committee of Southwest Washington 

I-1000
 2008 Physician Assisted Suicide Initiative
LifePac Opposed
Washington Coalition Against Assisted Suicide I-1000 Text
Wesley Smith's Secondhand Smoke Blog 
Natural Death Act Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Yes on 1000 Expenditures AMA Opposes PAS Not Dead Yet Blog
Wash State Med Assoc "Emphatically" Opposes I-1000 The Value of Human Life, Public Policy & Assisted Suicide
Why Assisted Suicide Must Not Be Legalized - California Disability Alliance What You Need to Know About Initiative 1000 When Death is Sought - NY State Task Force on Life and the Law
 

“A society's quality and durability can best be measured by the respect and care given its elderly citizens” ...............  Arnold Toynbee, historian .......................

New Study On Depression And Assisted Suicide
  BY AUSTIN JENKINS
 Olympia, WA �October 7, 2008

Next month voters in Washington State will decide Initiative 1000 - an Oregon-style "death with dignity" measure. The law's been on the books in Oregon for a decade.  Now a new study shows one-in-four patients who requested lethal drugs under the Oregon law were depressed. Correspondent Austin Jenkins reports on a study conducted by researchers at Oregon Health and Science University. The study � published in the British Medical Journal - followed 58 patients in Oregon who requested aid in dying. Most were terminally ill with cancer or Lou Gehrig�s disease. Of the 58, twenty-six percent were independently diagnosed with depression.

Full article at http://news.opb.org/article/3248-new-study-depression-and-assisted-suicide/

Depression and physician assisted suicide
 by Alex Schadenberg
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

People in Washington State need to be aware that if the I-1000 assisted suicide Initiative is passed, people who experience depression will not be effectively protected under "Oregon Style" guidelines.

The recently published study by Ganzini et al proves that 26% of people in Oregon who requested assisted suicide were experiencing depressive disorders. Even though many of those people were incompetent or unable to "freely choose" assisted suicide that in fact they were given a prescription for lethal drugs and died by ingesting those drugs.

The study by Linda Ganzini, Elizabeth R. Goy, and Steven K Dobscha - BMJ2008;337;a1682 states in its conclusion:

Our study suggests that most patients who request aid in dying do not have a depressive disorder. However, the current practice of the Death with Dignity Act in Oregon may not adequately protect all mentally ill patients, and increased vigilance and systematic examination for depression among patients who may access legalised aid in dying are needed. Tools for screening for depression such as those used in our study are easy to administer and may help to determine which patients need further evaluation by a mental health professional. Further study is needed to determine the effect of treatment of depression on the choice to hasten death.

Full article at http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/10/depression-and-physician-assisted.html
 

Vancouver Tackles Assisted Suicide
 by Carolyn Schultz-Rathbun
September 2008

            A public forum on physician-assisted suicide September 18th at Vancouver's LifePoint Church drew a small but engaged audience. Sponsored by No Assisted Suicide, the forum dealt with Washington's Initiative 1000, which, if approved by voters in November, would make Washington the second state, after Oregon, to legalize physician-assisted suicide.

Dr. Kenneth R. Stevens, Jr., Professor Emeritus and retired Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Oregon Health Sciences University, and Vancouver family practice physician Dr. Jim Heid cited a number of studies and read from the writings of assisted suicide proponents and others to make their case: end-of-life care should focus on use of advance directives, aggressive pain management and palliative care, and increased use of hospice, rather than legalization of assisted suicide.

Full article at: http://www.lifepac.org/ss1/2008/assistedsuicide2.htm

 

Washington Anti-Assisted Suicide Group Points to Oregon Problems to Reject I-1000

Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) -- If Washington state voters want to know what life may be like if they approve a measure to legalize assisted suicide this November, they need only examine the problems in Oregon. That’s because Oregon, the first state to allow the grisly practice, has had a host of problem following its approval of a similar measure. The Coalition Against Assisted Suicide tells LifeNews.com that the prestigious Michigan Law Review compiled an analysis of the ramifications of Oregon’s assisted suicide law and the evidence isn’t pretty. In the legal paper, Dr. Herbert Hendin, psychiatrist and CEO/Medical Director of Suicide Prevention International, a nonprofit organization located in New York, and Dr. Kathleen Foley, neurologist and professor at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, examined the Oregon story.

Full story at LifeNws.com


Guest Columnist: Proposal is reckless, unnecessary

RHEBA DE TORNYAY
GUEST COLUMNIST
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
August 25, 2008

Rudy, my husband for 53 years, was an ideal candidate for assisted suicide. The doctors told him he had only a few painful months to live. He had no religious convictions against suicide and every reason to embrace it. He was old -- in his 90s. He despised pain, dependency and the prospect of becoming a burden on me. He could expect my support because a decade before, I had robustly supported Initiative 119, the narrowly defeated precursor of this November's Initiative 1000, the "death with dignity" proposition.

Full article at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/376408_antidignity26.html

 

Assisted Suicide Backers Mislead the Public: Not About Alleviating Suffering

By Wesley J. Smith
August 11, 2008
 
LifeNews.com Note: Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. His current book is Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World.

I have become so sick and tired of the baloney that swirls around assisted suicide advocacy like gruel in a blender.

Assisted suicide is not really about the rare case when nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering--which has not been the case yet in any legalized jurisdiction from the Netherlands, to Switzerland, to Oregon. Rather, it is about establishing the right to what in essence would be death on demand.

Full article at http://www.lifenews.com/bio2542.html


Assisted suicide is a dying movement

ANGIE VOGT, Political commentary

August 02, 2008

Federal Way Mirror
 
 

Nihilism: A philosophy that argues that life has no objective meaning or purpose, that no action is any more moral or immoral than another action.

Years ago, I participated in a think tank discussion about various philosophies of life. One scholar in my group made the case that the philosophy of life embraced by a society will determine its level of happiness and its ability to prosper, more than any other factor, such as a society’s economic system, legal structure, etc.

Full article at: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/opinion/26182579.html
 

Oregon Tells Patients State Will Pay for Assisted Suicide, Not Health Care
 by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 30, 2008

Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) -- It's happened again -- another Oregon resident has heard form state officials that it will happily pay for an assisted suicide but will not pay for the medical treatment he needs. For the second time in just over the last month, a patient has said the state health insurance plan has promoted death over medical care.

Full article at: http://www.lifenews.com/bio2527.html

 

Assisted suicide gets push from out of state
July 27, 2008
By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST

When Initiative 1000 was certified for the ballot last Thursday, few would have thought a measure legalizing physician-assisted suicide would transform Washington voters into a "Chosen People."

If you read the 2007 report of the Death With Dignity National Center, however, what emerges is that the Evergreen State was carefully chosen, as it were, to revive a movement lately on life support.

Ful article at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/372417_Joel28.html

 

Washington State Medical Association Opposition to Physician-Assisted Suicide Reiterated
Washington State Medical Association Press Release
July 2, 2008

SEATTLE - The Washington State Medical Association (WSMA) opposes Initiative-1000, the measure to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Washington state. The opposition was emphatically voted on at the WSMA’s annual meeting last year. "We believe physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the role of physicians as healers," said WSMA President Brian P. Wicks, MD. "Patients put their trust in physicians and that bond of trust would be irrevocably harmed by the provisions of this dangerous initiative."

Full press release at: http://www.wsma.org/files/Downloads/NewsEvents/PressReleases/pr_I1000_%20release.pdf


Spokesman's Son, Disability Groups Oppose Washington Assisted Suicide Prop
 by Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com Editor
June 16, 2008

Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) -- The Initiative 1000 measure that would make Washington the second state, following Oregon, to legalize assisted suicide, is drawing expected opposition from pro-life groups and medical professionals. But the son of the proposal's spokesman and disability groups are opposed as well.

Booth Gardner the millionaire former governor of the state, is the lead spokesman for the I-1000 assisted suicide proposal.

Gardner suffers from Parkinson's disease, which is incurable but not fatal and he would not qualify to use the assisted suicide measure to take his own life. However, it prompted his desire to speak up for those who may want to take advantage of the grisly idea.

Yet, his assisted suicide advocacy has hurt his relationship with his son.

Gardner's 46-year-old son, Doug, told the Associated Press the two didn't talk for some time after Booth started pushing I-1000. While their relationship has improved since, Doug told AP he will join the coalition of groups and residents against the assisted suicide measure.

"I love him, I want the best for him," Doug Gardner said. "But don't make it easier for these people who are in a weak state to have an opt-out option."

Full article at: http://www.lifenews.com/bio2484.html

 

Lawmakers oppose assisted suicide initiative
 Tuesday, May 20, 2008
By The Daily News

A bipartisan group of state legislators, including Republican state Sen. Joe Zarelli, on Tuesday urged voters not to sign Initiative 1000, the assisted suicide petition being circulated in Washington state.

“It has virtually no protection for low-income and vulnerable people from being pressured into prematurely ending their life,” state Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, said in a statement released by the Olympia-based Coalition Against Assisted Suicide.

“This very dangerous initiative never would have passed the legislature,” added Prentice, a registered nurse and chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
 

Full story at http://www.tdn.com/articles/2008/05/20/breaking_news/doc483318d29f55d128012543.txt

 

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/357023_joel31.html
I-1000 campaign seeks to sell voters on death
March 30, 2008
By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST

If you are campaigning for the "right" of people to kill themselves, the first challenge is finding a nonlethal definition: Soft, reassuring terms must be substituted for the off-putting phrase "assisted suicide."

"Death with dignity is not suicide: Nor is assisted suicide, or physician-assisted suicide," proclaims ex-Gov. Booth Gardner in a fundraising letter for Initiative 1000, which would allow terminally ill adults to request and administer lethal medication prescribed by a doctor.

Gardner is seeking to raise $1 million for a signaturegathering campaign to get the initiative on the November ballot. The campaign has already collected $405,000.

Apparently Gardner and political consultants advising him never met Derek Humphrey, plain-spoken co-founder of the Hemlock Society.

"As the author of four books on the right to choose to die, including 'Final Exit,' I find the vacillation by (Oregon's) Department of Human Services on how to describe the act of a physician helping a terminally ill person to die by handing them a lethal overdose -- which they can choose to drink (or not) -- an affront to the English language," Humphrey wrote to The Register Guard newspaper in Eugene, Ore.

" 'Physician' means a licensed M.D.; 'assisted' means helping; and 'suicide' means deliberately ending life.

"The department's cop-out choice of the words 'death with dignity' is wildly ambiguous and means anything you want. Let's stick to the English language and in this matter call a spade a spade."

Full article at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/357023_joel31.html

 

Liberalism’s Troubled Search for Equality
 By Wesley J. Smith
March 5, 2008

In Liberalism’s Troubled Search for Equality, Robert P. Jones takes the measure of contemporary assisted-suicide advocacy through a distinctly liberal lens. He has impeccable credentials for this task: He is the director and senior fellow at the progressive think tank Center for American Values in Public Life, given birth by the progressive political-advocacy group People for the American Way. In fact, it is Jones’ fervent liberalism that leads him to declare boldly that legalized assisted suicide violates the principle of “egalitarian justice.”

Full article at: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=987


Oregon Assisted Suicide Advocates Donate $200,000 for Washington Campaign

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 5, 2008

Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) -- Oregon assisted suicide advocates have donated $200,000 to expand the state's first-in-the-nation law to their northern neighbors. Euthanasia advocates in Washington have to meet a July 4 deadline for having signatures submitted to the state to qualify the assisted suicide measure for the November ballot.

The organization, headed by former Gov. Booth Gardner, must submit 224,880 signatures to qualify the measure.

Full article at: http://www.lifenews.com/state2980.html


Gardner crusade is a selfish last act

By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST

A man of optimism and often-impish humor -- his voice was once likened to Elmer Fudd on helium -- ex-Gov. Booth Gardner seems like the last person you'd associate with the Grim Reaper.

Gardner is, however, pressing ahead with his "last campaign," an initiative to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state of Washington. The cause is controversial even in definition: Advocates speak of "death with dignity." Critics call it "legalized euthanasia."

"My life, my death, my control," Gardner, who has Parkinson's disease, told a New York Times Magazine profiler.

Oh, my, what a self- absorbed guy. The magazine revealed what sympathetic local news stories have not disclosed, that opposition to his campaign has welled up within Gardner's own family.

Full article at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/346947_joel11.html

 

The Washington State Assisted Suicide Campaign Begins
Saturday, December 01, 2007
By Wesley J. Smith

Booth Gardner, former governor of Washington and a very rich man, intends to buy a law for Washington legalizing assisted suicide. His opening salvo comes in an extended piece in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine. The piece is actually suprisingly fair, so fair in fact, that Gardner may not be amused.

There isn't space in a blog to fully describe the piece. So, let's just focus on two things. First, this is an "I-I," "me-me" agenda of the elites and Establishment-types like Gardner. As he states in the piece:

"Why do this?" he asked, turning from the other tables toward me. "I want to be involved in public life. I was looking for an issue, and this one fell in my lap. One advantage I have in this thing is that people like me. "The other"--his leprechaun eyes lost their glint; his fleshy cheeks seemed to harden, his lips to thin, his face to reshape itself almost into a square--"is that my logic is impeccable. My life, my death, my control."

Full article at: http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2007/12/washington-state-assisted-suicide.html

 

Coalition Against Assisted Suicide
Questions and Answers
Jan 2008

1. What would the proposed initiative do?

Assisted suicide would be legal if the initiative passes allowing doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of medication so certain

patients can use it to commit suicide.

2. What have other states said about assisted suicide?

Twenty-five states in the U.S.(including the state of Washington in 1991) have considered and rejected the legalization of

assisted suicide, while only one state, Oregon, has approved it. Experience has shown that people might have an initially

favorable view of “death with dignity” but when they learn more about assisted suicide, they oppose it.

3. What is the view of those who deal most closely with the dying?

The Washington State Medical Association (the state affiliate of the AMA), the Washington Hospice and Palliative Care

Organization and the Washington State Hospital Association do not support assisted suicide.

4. Why are you opposed to the measure?

Any law that allows doctors to terminate the lives of their patients is unwise and runs counter to thousands of years of civilization.

But this proposed law is especially flawed, without safeguards or monitoring to protect patients.

We are a broad coalition that includes doctors and nurses, disability rights advocates and organizations, hospice workers,

and minorities. Our members have various reasons for opposing assisted suicide.

Doctors are opposed

Most doctors and nurses believe their job is to promote health, treat symptoms, and cure medical conditions when possible.

Promoting assisted suicide is inconsistent with their commitment to "do no harm." Most people who died under Oregon's

assisted suicide law were suffering psychological distress, not intractable pain. End-of-life care specialists know that depression

in most terminally ill patients is treatable. Legalizing assisted suicide would trap depressed or anxious patients in

their own requests for death, abandoning them to die in unacknowledged terror.

The disability community is opposed

Society often dismisses the value and quality of the lives of people with disabilities, making many disabled people vulnerable

to pressure and manipulation. Also, assisted suicide endangers people with new disabilities or chronic diseases. People

with new disabilities often feel despondent and even suicidal. But over time they typically find satisfaction in their lives.

Working through this initial despair usually takes far longer than the brief two-week waiting period in Oregon's law. In that

critical early stage, many disabled people could easily take this irrevocable fatal step. And, as Dr. Jack Kevorkian taught us,

the line between a terminal illness and disability can be easily crossed.

Hospice workers are opposed

Hospice workers see the death process close-up. These professionals see the personal struggles, emotional and physical, that

come at the end of life. They have seen that death’s discomforts can be treated, and that dying has its own pace that should not

be cut short.

Minority groups are opposed

Some minority groups and advocates for the poor know that in our society health care is distributed unevenly, with the wealthy

given the best treatment. If that same system now condones terminating life, it will be the poor and minorities who could be

steered disproportionately towards suicide. Our system has many problems with health care insurance. Persons with inadequate

coverage may feel obligated to end their own lives before bankrupting their families. We need a better system of health care not

an increase in the number of suicides.

Religious groups are opposed

Many people have spiritual, moral, and religious reasons for opposing suicide and believe it does not further a higher and

greater good for humanity.

5. Isn’t this a matter of choice? Shouldn’t people be free to choose to end their own life?

No. It’s not a matter of choice. People can, after all, choose to commit suicide without any change in the law.

It is about whether we as a society are willing to put traditionally oppressed groups at risk of pressure to commit assisted

suicide based on long-held prejudices. In our broken health care system, saving money will win out over the genuine needs

of the sickest patients.

6. Isn’t this new law needed to help those who are suffering and in pain?

No. Medical advances make it possible to control the pain experienced by people with a terminal illness. Hospice and other services

are available to meet the needs of terminally ill people. And if someone who is imminently dying is in significant discomfort,

it is legal for the individual to be sedated to the point that the discomfort is relieved, making assisted suicide unnecessary.

Washington also has a living will law and directives which provide that extraordinary means not be used to preserve one’s

life. Our current laws empower families and loved ones in consultation with their physician in these hard end-of-life decisions.

7. Proponents say the Oregon Law works, is only occasionally utilized, and is not abused. What’s your response?

The so-called model in Oregon, vaunted by assisted suicide’s proponents, has very weak, permeable "safeguards" with

problems including doctor shopping, allowing depression to dictate patient choice, inexact prognoses, and protections for

doctors but not for patients. The few protections present on paper are not present in reality. Also, the Oregon law has a significantly

flawed monitoring system featuring no investigations of abuse and no oversight. There are no penalties for doctors

who fail to report assisting suicides. The State acknowledges its underlying data is destroyed after each annual report,

making it impossible to verify those reports’ conclusions independently.

8. What is “doctor shopping?”

In Oregon, if your doctor says he or she will not prescribe you lethal drugs, you can simply find another doctor who will.

Many of the Oregon reports show that 80% to 90% of patients using the Oregon law had a referral, not through their family

doctor, but through the pro-assisted suicide organization “Compassion and Choices.” The Oregonian, the state’s

major newspaper, complained in 2005 that the law’s reporting system “seems rigged to avoid

finding” the answers. Its limitations keep hidden any abuses and irregularities.

9. How would assisted suicide fit into our health care system?

In our profit-driven, health care system, pressures to cut costs by denying treatment already pose a significant danger. Legalizing

assisted suicide would intensify that danger. To deny patients life-sustaining treatments while offering the “choice”

of assisted suicide would subtly coerce them toward death.

10. What about the international experience?

International models such as the Netherlands shows that assisted suicide cannot be limited to a small, targeted group once

Pandora's box is opened. Assisted suicide has been legally tolerated in Holland for over 25 years, and research shows 1000

people year there are euthanized – killed by their doctors – absent any request. Dutch doctors help adolescent patients die,

as well as people who have no physical illness but only psychological suffering – even though the Dutch law is arguably

stronger than Oregon’s, because it requires a patient be suffering.

11. Has the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, filed with the State Public Disclosure Commission?

Yes.

12. How much do you expect to raise and spend?

We don't have that big money, the deep pockets, behind our campaign that the proponents do. Our goal is to educate the

voters about the many risks posed by assisted suicide.

13. Who exactly are the members of the coalition?

The Coalition includes people with disabilities, doctors, nurses, hospice workers, minority persons, and religious groups.

We are just getting started and as groups join the coalition, we’ll keep people updated.

Included in our coalition are:

Senator Margarita Prentice

Shane Macaulay, M.D.

James Zingerman, M.D., Selah Family Medicine

Ross Bethel, M.D., Selah Family Medicine

Patricia O'Halloran, MD

W. Michael Priebe, MD

Paul Lester, MD

Linda Wrede-Seaman, MD

Pastor Joe Feiton, from Bothell

Chris Carlson, from Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE DISABILITY COMMUNITY LEADERS

Joelle Brouner, Executive Director, Washington State Rehabilitation Council*, Olympia

Lonnie Davis, Disability Rights Attorney, Seattle

Duane French, Not Dead Yet, Olympia

Rob Honan, Director, State Independent Living Council*, Olympia

Dennis Lang, Activist, Seattle

Jack Michaels, past Executive Director, Northwest Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), Burian

Marshall Mitchell, Faculty Member, Washington State University*, Pullman

Toby Olson, Executive Secretary, Governor’s Committee on Disability Issues and Employment*, University Place

* Organizations are listed for identification purposes only

14. Isn’t this coalition really imposing a religious view on the sanctity of human life onto what is arguably the most secularized,

non-church going state in the nation?

No. The proponents of assisted suicide always repeat the falsehood that only religious conservatives are opposed. In fact,

the American Medical Association, representing doctors in every state, opposes assisted suicide. And all across the nation,

those disability organizations with the strongest history of working for individual choice are the most uniformly strong in

their opposition to making assisted suicide legal. While religious groups are in the mix, the opposition to assisted suicide is

a broad coalition of left, right and center.