Results tagged “deathwithdignity”

The voter-approved Death With Dignity act, known as Initiative 1000 in November 's election, means that hospitals now have to figure out how to implement the new law--or if they want to offer the option at all. So far, Harborview and the UW Medical Center are the two major hospitals in Seattle who have decided to participate, meaning their physicians would provide the life-ending medication and would be present during the dose administration. It looks like many of the state's hospices will not be formally participating, but would still work with patients and their families who could obtain the prescription elsewhere before and after the act itself.

Thank you all for participating in our Seattlest Vote 2008 Polls over the last week! Though the polls were informal, they still give us a fairly good reading on how the Seattlest community will be voting today.

For many Seattle residents, the Death With Dignity Initiative (I-1000) gets a heartfelt, fairly immediate vote of approval. P-I columnist Joel Connelly is not so sure. Today's paper includes Connelly's long-ish rant about I-1000 supporters' misguiding ads on the radio, and he awards the initiative his "Sheer Gall Award" for its advertisements' "anti-Catholic" "landslide of distortions." We suggest you read his fact-checks and decide for yourself.

Initiative I-1000 is the Death With Dignity Initiative that would allow end-stage, terminally ill patients to have access to prescribed life-ending medication. The Times elegantly argues, "On the grounds of compassion for the suffering, and recognition of the individual as a moral agent, death with dignity is a right that should be allowed." Attorney Margaret Dore objects to I-1000's exact phrasing because it "would put vulnerable persons at risk of abuse (and worse) at the hands of others." And finally, local doctors are ambivalent.

Former Washington governor Booth Gardner has Parkinson's. He's been using his leftover political capital to campaign for a "Death with Dignity" initiative, to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Washington state. And it's been working. Even the New York Times took note of Gardner's labors.