Huckleberries Online

Washington Suicide Law In Effect

Posted by DFO

March 5, 2009 9:20 a.m. • 11 comments

Item: Assisted suicide law now in effect: Washington measure patterned after one from Oregon/Brandon Macz/Lewiston Tribune

More Info: The Death with Dignity Act takes effect in Washington today, but language in the law could turn local patients toward private practitioners and away from hospitals in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley and on the Palouse. Similar to Oregon’s Right-to-Die law, which was implemented nearly 11 years ago and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006, the Death with Dignity Act allows terminal patients with six months or less to live to request fatal medications. It was placed on Washington ballots last year and received about 60 percent approval statewide. About 56 percent of Asotin County residents voted in favor of the initiative.

Question: Should Idaho adopt an assisted-suicide law?

11 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Lynne on March 05 at 9:36 a.m.
Yes!
Duffer on March 05 at 9:52 a.m.
Yes. The sooner, the better as I’m not getting any younger! :)
Charlie on March 05 at 9:59 a.m.
Can we have some politicians test it out so that we know it works?
Aliasjax on March 05 at 11:16 a.m.
Yes.
JeanieSpokane on March 05 at 11:46 a.m.
I have written about my Dad on my blog. See http://jeaniespokane.blogspot.com/2008/03/dad.html. Dad was just a wonderful gentle man. I loved him with my whole heart. In December 2003, he was living in Oregon on the coast, where he and Mom had retired to for the sunset of their life. Only Dad was in the last stages of kidney disease. He was on dialysis every other day, six hours a day, and they were down to the last available vein after several collapsing episodes over the years. He made the decision to not continue dialysis as it was only prolonging the inevitable. Dialysis was no longer giving him a quality of life. It was literally draining; he slept around the clock; when he was awake he was confused and disoriented and nauseous. He could manage to stay awake about 20 minutes and then off he’d go again. He said it just wasn’t living. So, he made his big decision and my sister and I joined our parents for Dad’s last week. It was a wonderful beautiful week in a searingly painful way. The Death with Dignity Law was a long time coming. I have a hard time, though, with it being called the Assisted Suicide Law but what else can it be called? I just know that with my Dad, life was so important to him; it was something he wrote about as a reporter; it was something he believed in; and it was something he loved and enjoyed - - - and LIVED. I am glad this Death with Dignity Law has come to be.
Rosalind on March 05 at 8:01 p.m.
Dying adults deserve this choice. YES, Idaho should adopt this law!

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.