‘Suicide’ not in initiative summary

OLYMPIA – In a victory for Washington’s proposed Death With Dignity initiative, a judge on Friday refused to add the words “physician-assisted suicide” to the ballot or official voters pamphlet description.

“It is a somewhat loaded term,” said Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham. He said it conjures up images of Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan physician who claimed to have helped more than 100 people die before being convicted of murder in one of the cases.

Instead of “suicide,” voters will read that Initiative 1000 would allow some terminally ill patients “to request and self-administer lethal medication” prescribed by a doctor. Wickham’s decision largely upheld a description written by the state attorney general’s office.

The ruling was a setback for critics, including a Catholic doctors group and activists for the rights of disabled people.

Duane French, a quadriplegic state worker who filed the court challenge, had a sign hanging from the back of his wheelchair in the courtroom Friday. “SHAME,” it read. “If people were not ashamed, they would call it what it is: assisted suicide,” French said.

“They’re trying to hide it,” French said during a court break. “They know society really hasn’t changed and people don’t support it.”

Filed in early January by former Gov. Booth Gardner, I-1000 would allow a doctor to legally prescribe lethal drugs to a terminally ill person who had less than six months to live, so long as two doctors agree that the patient is mentally competent. Writing such a prescription is a felony in Washington. Oregon is the only state that allows it.

In both court rulings and the dictionary, killing oneself is suicide, said Kristen Waggoner, attorney for the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide.

Proponents argue that it’s inaccurate to call it suicide when a dying patient chooses to hasten death with a prescription. Labeling that “suicide,” I-1000 attorney Jessica Skelton said, is “politicized language” that “implies a value judgment and carries with it a social stigma.”

“Physician-assisted suicide” is also simply wrong, she said, suggesting that a doctor “would administer the medication in the style of Mr. Kevorkian.”

Under I-1000, the only assistance by a doctor would be the writing of a lethal prescription. The doctor could not, for example, administer a fatal injection. (Oregon’s decade of experience with a similar law suggests that a high percentage of patients who get a lethal prescription never use it.)

After half an hour of mulling things over, Judge Wickham made some minor changes to the language proposed by the attorney general’s office. But he rejected several changes requested by assisted-suicide foes:

•He declined to add a line saying that no evaluation by a mental health professional is required. The measure says doctors must conclude that the patient is mentally competent. If there’s a doubt, they must send the patient for an evaluation.

•He wouldn’t add a requested line saying that “no next-of-kin notification … is required.” While that’s true, the measure also encourages the involvement of family members.

•And he declined to change the word “medication” to “drugs.” Critics said medication implies something to improve health. The attorney general’s office tried its best to write an objective summary, Deputy Solicitor General Anne Egeler said. The office didn’t want to use either “death with dignity” or “physician-assisted suicide,” she said, for fear of being accused of slanting the wording. But she noted that ballot language repeatedly notes that the medication would be lethal.

“This is a very blunt word, lethal,” she said. “Not a pleasant word.”

Wickham’s decision is final. Under state law, a Superior Court judge’s ruling cannot be appealed.