Ex-governor backs assisted suicide

OLYMPIA -- Showing the debilitating signs of Parkinson's disease, with his foot turned inward and a limp to his walk, former Gov. Booth Gardner filed an initiative Wednesday to put a doctor-assisted suicide law on the ballot in November.

The initiative, modeled after a similar law in Oregon, would allow doctors to prescribe a fatal dose of barbiturates to terminally ill patients diagnosed with six months or less to live.

Gardner -- whose own illness would not qualify him for physician-assisted suicide under the proposed law -- is working on behalf of the group Compassion and Choices Washington. He said the push to gather the required 225,000 valid voter signatures by July would be his "last campaign."

"I went from thinking I was indestructible to knowing that I was no longer indestructible" Gardner said after filing the initiative.

"Not that all my decisions we're good by any stretch of the imagination, but I was still able to make them. Now I realize I can't do that ... the kids take over, the nurses and doctors take over, and you lose your autonomy."

The initiative does not come without its foes.

Opposition from doctors, lawyers and some Christian groups, as well as from disability-rights advocates, is likely to be formidable.

Gardner's son Dan has even spoken out against his father's advocacy.

Twenty-five states have considered and rejected doctor-assisted suicide laws, including Washington, where an initiative was dismissed at the polls in 1991.

"To me, the religious views are rather simple. 'Thou shall not kill' is still one of the Ten Commandments," said pastor Joe Fuiten of the Faith and Freedom Network.

"But it's not just about the religious community. If you try to kill Grandma, there are going to be a lot of objections."

Duane French, a spokesman for the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, referred to doctor-assisted suicide as a "phony form of freedom," saying profit-oriented health care providers would be motivated to deny patients coverage, prompting a rise in deaths by patients who view suicide as the only viable solution.

Also among the opponents is Gov. Chris Gregoire. When asked about her position on Gardner's initiative, Gregoire spoke with feeling.

"I love my friend Booth Gardner, and my heart goes out to his condition and what he's had to face," she said. "I pray every day that we will find a cure, but I find it on a personal level very, very difficult to support assisted suicide."

A group of advocates of doctor-assisted suicide accompanying the former governor told a different story, though.

Lynnwood resident Nancy Niedzielski said she watched her husband wither away with brain cancer, beginning with hair loss and a change in personality, before progressing to a loss of speech and motor functions, as her husband lost "every part of what he used to be."

Niedzielski said that before his death, her husband wanted to move to Oregon so that he would be able to take advantage of the state's Death With Dignity act, but doctors told him he wouldn't live long enough.

"He asked me to promise him that I would change the law in Washington state, and I promised him I would," Niedzielski said.

Gardner said that despite the governor's opposition, he remains optimistic.

"She said she can't support this. That's a long way from saying she'll work against it. And if that's where she is, then I'm very happy with that."