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Coalition’s Focus on Excellence in Palliative Care Included in Article Describing Support and Opposition to Washington State’s Death with Dignity Initiative
January 14, 2008
On January 9 in Olympia, WA, former Gov. Booth Gardner filed an initiative that would allow terminally ill people in the state to end their own lives. The initiative would make Washington the second state in the nation to offer such an option. Called Death with Dignity, the law would allow people who have been diagnosed with an incurable illness to take medication that would cause their death. The option would be available only to people who have been told by doctors that their illness will likely kill them within six months. Gardner and other backers of the initiative have until July 3 to collect 224,800 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot in November. Once there, it needs only a simple majority to become law. The newspaper article quoted both proponents and those opposed to the initiative. From interviews with those opposed, the reporter stated that patients, even those who are terminally ill with rapidly deteriorating bodies, aren't likely to want to kill themselves if they're properly cared for. Coalition Executive Director Karin Dufault was interviewed and quoted as saying: "We (Coalition) believe that by providing excellence in palliative care, by managing all symptoms and attending to psychosocial and spiritual needs, that the need of having physician-assisted suicide becomes moot." Often, it is a fear of physical and psychological suffering that fuels the desire to commit suicide. If that suffering is managed through adequate care, patients are much more likely to await a natural death, she said. The Daily Herald, January 10, 2008. To read the entire article, http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080110/NEWS01/957174344
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