Lawmaker Revives Assisted-Suicide Issue Bill Allows Doctor To Prescribe Lethal Drugs

Lawmakers re-opened the assisted-suicide debate Thursday with a bill that allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients.

The bill, SB5596, was introduced last year by the late Sen. Cal Anderson, who died of AIDS-related illness last summer.

It was brought back this year by Sen. Kevin Quigley, D-Snohomish, the Senate Health and Longterm Care Committee chairman.

The debate began in 1991 when Initiative 119, allowing physicians to administer lethal injections, failed at the ballot box.

State law allows life-support systems to be turned off at a patient’s request, but assisted suicide is illegal. The bill would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication to mentally competent, terminally ill patients on request.

“We believe the government should respect the rights of citizens to the highest degree possible,” said Gerard Sheehan, legislative director for the Washington state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “What right is more intimate than the end of life?”

Sheehan spoke in favor of the long-shot bill during a committee hearing Thursday.

Dianne Stollenwerk, a lobbyist for the Sisters of Providence Health System, opposes the measure.

“We respect the dignity of the life of an individual, but you have to start with compassionate care for everyone, rather than jumping to this,” Stollenwerk said. “With this bill, we are saying the answer is to let people commit suicide.”

The Washington State Medical Association is opposing the measure. Dr. Peter McGough, speaking for the association, said the bill underestimates patient depression and has the potential to be expanded beyond the Legislature’s intent.

Oregon’s Proposition 16, the assisted-suicide law that passed in November 1994, is similar to the bill.

That measure is tied up in federal court and hasn’t gone into effect.

But Dr. Leigh Dolin, past president of the Oregon Medical Association, said the law still had an impact.

“The issue has become that doctors need to do a better job of taking care of terminally ill patients,” Dolin said.

Sen. John Moyer, R-Spokane, said passage of the Washington bill is unlikely. Moyer, the only doctor in the Senate, is the ranking minority member of the committee hearing the proposal.

He said a better solution would be to mandate insurance coverage of hospice care. Unlike hospitals, which are in business to save lives, hospices help patients with the process of death, Moyer said.

Moyer said the bill raises more questions than answers, such what drug the doctor should prescribe and how much of the drug would it take to kill the patient. Doctors also might open themselves to wrongful death suits.

, DataTimes