Efforts in Washington

By None, Death with Dignity Update, May 21, 2006

Washingtonians for Dignity Assess Their Next Steps
Despite failure of House Bill 6843, death with dignity supporters remain optimistic.

Following the Supreme Court ruling on January 17 upholding Oregon's Death with Dignity Law, Washington State Senator Pat Thibaudeau introduced Senate Bill 6843 (the Washington Death with Dignity Act). Thibaudeau said it is vital that any Washington law mirror Oregon's, with specific language and multiple safeguards to protect patients' rights and address opponents' objections.

Section 2 of the law reads: "An adult who is capable, is a resident of Washington state, and has been determined by the attending physician and consulting physician to be suffering from a terminal illness, and who has voluntarily expressed his or her wish to die, may make a written request for medication to end his or her life in a humane and dignified manner..."

Washington State Senator Pat Thibeaudeau

The bill failed to emerge from the Senate Committee on Health & Long Term Care before the legislative session ended on March 9, 2006. Nonetheless, Thibaudeau said public education will be key to ongoing efforts in her state. "It's important to begin the discussion about it," she told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "I believe it's a matter of choice. As our population grows older, this will increasingly become an issue."

As with the Oregon law, SB 6843 would have covered patients with incurable diseases, whom at least two doctors agree have six months or less to live and are of sound mind. It also would have required that the patient make a written request that is witnessed by at least two people and that two doctors confirm the prognosis. Thibaudeau said, "There are limited numbers, but there are situations where a person wants to make this choice. They should be allowed to make this choice."

Eight years of successful implementation of Oregon's Death with Dignity Law, the Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. Oregon, and continued public support of physician-assisted dying have built momentum in Washington, where grassroots citizens, legislators and end-of-life experts are assessing their next steps.

Adding to prospects for a Washington death with dignity law are efforts by Booth Gardner, a popular former governor who is leading efforts to pass an assisted-dying law in the Evergreen State. Gardner told the Associated Press in February 2006 that he wants the option for himself when the end is near. The former governor has been battling Parkinson's Disease for more than 14 years and said, "When I go, I want to decide....That's why I plan to work on getting ‘assisted death' in this state."

Former Washington Governor Booth Gardner

In a March 7 interview with the Post-Intelligencer, Gardner said, "I have good days and bad days." He said he plans to have innovative "deep brain surgery" and that doctors tell him the surgery should give him at least five productive years of life.

Gardner recently told legislators, lobbyists and top government officials that he plans to push an assisted-death initiative, noting that Oregon has a voter-approved assisted-dying law that has withstood court scrutiny. "I think it will pass this time," Gardner said. He also apologized to those who might be offended by his plan but said it should be his decision when and how he dies.

A 1991 Washington initiative proposal to legalize voluntary euthanasia was defeated by a vote of 54% to 46%. However, all indications show that an initiative legalizing only physician-assisted dying and containing the highly successful protections of the Oregon law would succeed in a properly managed campaign in 2008.

Read SB 6843.

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January 2006: Lawmaker wants to start discussion of physician-assisted suicide

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
by Rachel LaCorte (Associate Press)

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Following a U.S. Supreme Court decision [on January 17, 2006] upholding Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law, a lawmaker here introduced a bill Thursday that would allow doctors to write prescriptions to help terminally ill patients die.

Sen. Pat Thibaudeau, D-Seattle, said she wasn't sure if the bill would even get a hearing because it's such a controversial topic to tackle during the short 60-day legislative session.

"It's important to begin the discussion about it," she said. "I believe it's a matter of choice. As our population grows older, this will increasingly become an issue."

Thibaudeau's bill, which would create the "Death with Dignity Act," would cover extremely sick people: those with incurable diseases, whom at least two doctors agree have six months or less to live and are of sound mind.

The law would mirror Oregon's. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

Oregon's law, the only one of its kind in the country, allows doctors only to write prescriptions for such patients, who must administer the drugs themselves.

Thibaudeau's 14-page bill requires that patients be competent adults who make an informed decision to end their life if they have a terminal disease. They must make a written request that is witnessed by at least two people, and two doctors must confirm the diagnosis.

"There are limited numbers, but there are situations where a person wants to make this choice," she said. "They should be allowed to make this choice."

Washington voters narrowly rejected an initiative in 1991 that would have allowed doctors to write prescriptions to hasten death. Unlike Oregon's law and Thibaudeau's bill, Initiative 119 also would have allowed doctors to administer lethal injections to terminally ill patients who weren't able to take the medications on their own.

Dan Kennedy, CEO of Human Life of Washington, called physician-assisted suicide "medicalized killing."

"What it does, it turns the healing profession on its head," he said. "People who are dying need tender loving care, they don't need to be assisted out of this life."

Midge Levy, vice president of Compassion & Choices of Washington, the state's largest aid-in-dying advocacy group, said physicians would not be killing people if this measure passed.

"Killing implies something done against the person's will," she said. "We're talking about an option for a prolonged and anguished dying process."

Levy said the group hadn't yet decided whether to support another initiative attempt if Thibaudeau's bill failed.

The Washington State Medical Association opposes any effort to legalize physician-assisted suicide, spokeswoman Jennifer Hanscom said Thursday.

The association, which opposed I-119, also opposed the federal government's action against doctors in the Oregon case. Hanscom said that did not constitute an endorsement of Oregon's law, but that the association was opposed to the attempt by the federal government to come in and affect medical practice.

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1991
Washington voters in 1991 rejected Ballot Measure 119 by 46% to 54%. The proposed law would have overturned an existing ban on physician-assisted dying. Measure 119 not only would have allowed doctors to write prescriptions to hasten death, but unlike Oregon's law would also have allowed doctors to administer lethal injections to terminally ill patients who weren't able to take the medications on their own. According to the DDNC's Peg Sandeen, self administration by the patient and prohibition of lethal injection are key to Oregonians' support of their Death with Dignity Law.

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Related Links and Articles

• Washington State's physician-assisted suicide bill is Senate Bill 6843
• Washington State Legislature http://www.leg.wa.gov
• Assisted Suicide Bill Offered in Olympia (The Oregonian, 2/8/2006)
• Former Washington Governor Endorses Assisted Suicide Bill (Associated Press, 2/7/2006)
• Washington State Bill Would Allow Assisted Suicide, Ballot Proposal Next (LifeNews.com, 2/8/2006)
• Editorial: "The Right to Make the Final Decision (The Seattle Times, 2/14/2006)