Washington State’s new assisted suicide initiative is closely modeled after Oregon’s doctor assisted suicide which allows for medical help to seek suicide. In other words, Initiative 1000, would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients seeking to hasten their deaths, but not actively participate.
Previously, in 1991, initiative 119, which would have allowed a doctor to prescribe and administer lethal drugs, such as with a lethal injection, was defeated. This year’s initiative in Washington State, will instead be “defined as ‘ingest’ — a lethal dose of medication. Doctors could prescribe the drugs, but not administer them, without running afoul of a state law against assisting a suicide.” I-1000 as it is often called, is stirring up a heated debate among supporters and opponents of physician assisted suicide before the Nov. 4 election.
Dr. Jack Leversee, an 81-year-old retired family doctor from Seattle supporting the initiative, said: “The last thing I want is to be in an intensive-care unit in some hospital and being declared alive because I’m artificially on a breathing machine, keeping my heart going with a defibrillator, unconscious so I can’t communicate with my family in any way. I don’t want that at all.” What do you think about I-1000?
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Read former Washington Governor Gardner’s take on it at the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/booth-gardner/voters-to-decide-death-wi_b_128342.html
And read a Seattle Times article on doctors’ views on death with dignity here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2008194843&zsection_id=2003925728&slug=death22m&date=20080922