If approved, Initiative 1000 would allow doctors to prescribe lethal medicines to patients with six months or less to live. Supporters say Initiative 1000 would allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults to request and self-administer medication in order to die on their own terms. The initiative was filed in January by former Gov. Booth Gardner, a Parkinson's disease patient.
Also called the "Death With Dignity Initiative" it would make Washington the nation's second state, after Oregon, to allow physician-assisted suicide. The new Washington law would be modeled on Oregon's 10-year-old law.
For an initiative to make the ballot, supporters must turn in 225,000 signatures from registered voters. State officials will check a sampling of the petitions to ensure they were signed by registered voters.
However, the I-1000 also has many opponents including Duane French, a paralyzed civil servant who heads the opposing disabilities-rights group Not Dead Yet. He fears the law, if approved, would encourage oppression and discrimination against people with disabilities.
The Seattle Times quoted a report by the Oregon Department of Human Services indicating that 49 people in Oregon died under the terms of the assisted suicide law in 2007. More than 340 patients, most of whom suffered from cancer, have used the law to end their lives since its inception over a decade ago.
