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News
News
Humanists' Newsletter Discusses History of Compassion, Initiative 119
Initiative 1000 is not a new battle, but the latest round in an eighteen-year battle to legalize aid in dying in Washington State. Many of the same players are active on both sides of the debate. And the same old moth-eaten arguments that were employed against Initiative 119 are being trotted out again by the anti-1000 campaign.
How does Compassion's history intersect with the history of the aid-in-dying movement? Who are the real opponents of Initiative 1000, and are they the same forces who opposed I-119? This informative article, which appeared in the latest newsletter of the Humanists of Washington, sheds light on the connected histories of Initiative 119, Initiative 1000, and Compassion in Dying (now Compassion & Choices of Washington). Read the entire article in PDF form.
Note: this is an excerpt from the Humanists' newsletter. Go to: Humanists' Newsletter to read the entire issue . Be aware that their full newsletter is an extremely large file (over 2 MB), and may take a while to download.
An Irreverent but Heartfelt Look at Aid in Dying
"I don't know what it will be like to be dead, but I'm assuming it'll be similar to what it was like before I was born. It's not something that keeps me up at night, but here's something that does: the thought of slowly losing my mental and physical capacities and the ability to enjoy anything I used to, wasting away in pain and discomfort, waiting, wishing, hoping for death the way I used to wait for girls to call me when I was in junior high school." - Bob Oswald
Recently, Robb Miller, Executive Director of C&C, was interviewed by our neighborhood newspaper, the Belltown Messenger. The resulting article was one of the funniest and most unusual pieces we've ever seen about C&C. The writer, Bob Oswald, takes an irreverent and surprisingly heartfelt look at aid in dying. Read it for yourself at the Belltown Messenger.
New Aid-in-Dying Initiative Filed in Olympia
On January 9, 2008, a new initiative was filed to legalize aid in dying in Washington State. The new initiative mirrors the Oregon law and would allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults in Washington State with six months or less to live the legal choice to access and self-administer life-ending medication under strict medical supervision.
This initiative is the culmination of over two years of work led by Compassion & Choices of Washington (C&C). C&C's board of directors first proposed forming a coalition to pass an aid-in-dying initiative during a strategic planning retreat in January 2006. In the following months, we assembled a coalition that included the Death with Dignity National Center and C&C National, and began making plans to launch an initiative. Later that year, former Governor Booth Gardner announced his support for aid in dying and he was asked to join the coalition.
We expect the initiative review process to be completed by February. Once that process is complete and a ballot title is approved, petitions for signature gathering will be printed and distributed to volunteers across the state. At least 3,000 volunteers are needed across the state to cover shifts at stores each week and gather signatures from friends and family. Please contact the campaign office today to preorder petitions, volunteer in the campaign headquarters in Seattle, or make a donation. For more information, go to the campaign website, www.ItsMyDecision.org.
Living Will Registry Complete
In March 2006, Governor Chris Gregoire signed a law creating an online registry where advance directives can be stored and accessed on a secure website. C&C played an essential role in the passage of that bill (which we described in more detail in our Summer 2006 newsletter).
The website for the new registry is www.doh.wa.gov/livingwill. Those who register will receive a wallet card and a special sticker to place on their driver's license. The website is administered by the Department of Health, with support from the U.S. Living Will Registry. For more information, go to the website or email livingwill@doh.wa.gov.
Liz Taylor praises C&C's Advance Directive - Again
In her October 29 column for the Seattle Times, "Growing Older" columnist Liz Taylor explains the details about durable powers of attorney forms. She also encourages her readers to use C&C's advance directive packet, which contains both a "living will" and a durable power of attorney for health care (DPOHC) form.
In October 2006, Ms. Taylor praised about our advance directive packet and Wonderfile: "I'm comforted to know the Compassion & Choices documents will allow me to have more of a say in my own death than the advance directives I prepared years ago. It's a critical element in protecting my future quality of life now, while I'm healthy and able."
related
» Compassion & Choices of Washington's Advance Directives Form
» Liz Taylor - Growing Older for October 29th, 2007
Oregon Celebrates 10 Years of Death with Dignity
Ten years ago this week, Oregon's Death with Dignity law went into effect. Oregon is still the only state in the country where physician-assisted dying is legal. The law has survived attacks by presidents, members of Congress, and two Attorneys General. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Colin Fogerty produced this special report on the Death with Dignity Act, which was aired on NPR and heard locally on KUOW.
related
» Oregon's Death With Dignity Law Turns 10 - Colin Fogerty, OPB
» Oregon's
10 years of empowering patients - The Oregonian
New Study Finds No "Slippery Slope" for Poor, People with Disabilities
A new study in the Journal of Medical Ethics found that legalization of physician-assisted dying does not lead to vulnerable populations - such as the poor, people with disabilities, or racial or ethnic minorities - requesting aid in dying at a higher rate. The study effectively debunks the "slippery slope" argument used by the opposition.
The study drew from the experiences in Oregon and the Netherlands, where aid in dying is legal. Researchers examined those populations considered "vulnerable" - including the elderly, women, uninsured, poor, people with AIDS, those with low educational status, racial and ethnic minorities, and those with non-terminal physical disabilities or chronic non-terminal illness. They found that in all but one case - that of people with AIDS - none of these groups uses aid in dying at disproportionately higher rates.
Critics have argued that if physician-assisted suicide were legalized, patients in these groups would be more likely to ask for death and could be easily manipulated by doctors and family members. This study clearly shows that this argument has no basis in fact.
related
» University of Utah Study
» Science Daily Article
» Salt Lake Tribune Article
C&C Board Member Honored by WSPA
C&C Board Member Judith Gordon, Ph.D., will receive the Washington State Psychological Association (WSPA) Social Issues Award at its 2007 Fall Convention. The award is in recognition of her work creating the new value-neutral policy on requests for aid in dying. WSPA is now the only mental health organization in the country that has stopped the use of loaded and inaccurate terms such as "assisted suicide," opting instead for value-neutral language such as "aid in dying" or "physician-assisted dying."
Now the co-chair of the WSPA End-of-Life Committee, Judith has helped shape the association's stance on end-of-life care and assisted dying. While WSPA has not taken a stand for or against the legalization of assisted dying, their public position is that psychologists can play an important role in addressing end-of-life care as a public health issue.
This is Judith's second Social Issues Award. She was first honored in 1999 for her work to raise the profile of end-of-life issues within the WSPA and the American Psychological Association. Her efforts at the time resulted in WSPA signing the first of several amicus briefs to the Supreme Court addressing end-of-life decisions. Judith has also done pioneering work on the national front with the American Psychological Association, including participating in a working group on end-of-life issues from 1998 to 2000.
Judith is a clinical professor at the University of Washington and was part of a team at UW that has conducted research and published several papers on requests for hastened death. She has been in private practice in Seattle for nearly thirty years. Judith joined the C&C board in 1996, a position she holds to this day, and was one of C&C's early case managers. After the death of her father, she became strongly interested in the role of psychologists working with the terminally ill and their families. We congratulate Judith on her well-deserved award and thank her for her tireless efforts to promote unbiased treatment of those facing the end of life.
Governor Appoints C&C Advisor to Board
C&C Advisory Committee member Molly Hoffman has been appointed to the Governor's Family Practice Advisory Board. This important board advises University of Washington School of Medicine on the implementation of educational programs in family medicine. She hopes to use her position to raise potential new areas of study, including an expanded focus on death and dying. She is also eager to add a social work perspective to the board, which is typically dominated by medical professionals.
Molly has been one of our most active volunteers and has led presentations about advance directives and end-of-life issues at a wide range of events. Along with another resident, she presented an ethics case to both the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) and the Harborview Social Work Department, and then again to an Ethics Brownbag at UWMC. She also presented a paper about Advance Directives at a National Conference of Death and Dying Studies which was later published. Molly was a member of the faculty and the social worker for Family Practice Residency Program of the UWMC until her retirement this summer, and practiced as a social worker for nearly twenty years. As a faculty member, she focused on issues of death and dying, and often invited speakers from C&C to her classroom.
Press Release - Governor Chris Gregoire
TOLL-FREE: 877.222.2816EMAIL: info@CandCofWA.org