I am very interested in the views of people here about an issue that my state will be voting on in a few week: Washington’s initiative I-1000, the Physician-Assisted Suicide Initiative, “Death with Dignity” if you are a supporter. To the detractors, it establishes a potential for abuse that puts vulnerable people such as depressed or poor patients at risk. For such a contentious issue, and one that was once something I thought a lot about, it hasn’t been something that I’ve spent much time on recently. I’ll say that I’m not an expert, but I treat many patients who could avail themselves of this service, which would provide mentally competent patients with a terminal diagnosis and anticipated survival of 6 months or less access to lethal medications after several conversations and a waiting period of at least 15 days. I’m very interested in what patients and caregivers think about this polarizing issue.
On the one hand, it’s received support from a wide range of politicians (listed on this page), as well as newspapers such as the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and many others in the state. Tellingly, however, it is criticized by the Oregonian, the largest newspaper in Oregon, the only state that allows physician assisted suicide based on a similar initiative passed several years ago. Although part of the criticism from the Oregonian is based on the breadth of the initiative in Washington, much of the concern is the fundamental discordance between the physician role as healer and the potential role in facilitating death, which is the primary reason that it is not supported by the Washington State Medical Association, as well as the American Medical Association. Similar initiatives have failed in 14 other states over the past decade.
For those interested in reading more, the summary positions are available here for those in favor, and here for those against this initiative.
