Ex-governor backs assisted suicide

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Ex-governor backs assisted suicide

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Suffering former Washington governor backs assisted suicide

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Reply to: mailto:comm-535878218@craigslist.org?subject=Suffering%20former%20Washington%20governor%20backs%20assisted%20suicide
Date: 2008-01-11, 11:57AM PST


Ex-governor backs assisted suicide
Gardner says his 'last campaign' is push for new law
By BRIAN SLODYSKO P-I REPORTER

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."

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 current 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."
P-I reporter Brian Slodysko can be reached at 360-943-8311 or brianslodysko@seattlepi.com.

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Anna_Marie_Rogers

I am so glad that this ex-governor is working toward this cause.  I went through a mastectomy and chemo once and terrible illnesses afterward because I had no immunities.  Now I've had 3 blood tests showing elevated cancer antigens.  I'm supposed to have a CAT scan Sunday.  If it is cancer again, I have no desire to go through more horrible treatments just to live miserably and be a burden to others.  I do not understand why those of us in this position cannot choose to exit life at a time of our own choosing.  We do not treat our pets this way.  Why do we torture human beings this way out of some misguided religious notions?  I'm sure that my loving God does not want me to suffer any more.  If I do have cancer, expecially if it is in my brain, I intend to try to find the courage and the means to end my life while I am still in control of it.  I do not want to lose my autonomy or dignity or be thought of as a burden.  I also don't want to suffer alone.  This may be cowardice, but I know my inner resources and beliefs and feel I have a right to act on them.

Anna Marie

wishiwere

bumping

mimi1030

On the note of religious notions.  If you believe in God he commanded that "thou shalt not kill" that includes ourselves, our life is God's life to take and his alone.  He will appoint the time of death as he appointed the time for his own son Jesus to die.   And he suffered far worse than any human could ever suffer on earth.  My mom went through grueling chemo after her mastectomy, she spent most of 3 months in the hospital sick with it.  She now has mets and is on chemo again, it is getting rid of the cancer very quickly, and she is leading a normal life, she is not sick at all.  Just a bald head thats about it. 

We cannot claim to know what God thinks, that is just us making assumptions in our own minds about that.  Only he knows what he thinks.  My mom would never think of throwing in the towel so quickly and she has confirmed mets, you do not know that yet.  My mom has 3 children who need her and she will do what it takes to stay with us as many years more as she can.  It is not a burden, nor will she ever be a burden, if she were to end her life that would be a burden on our hearts for the rest of our lives.

Tumor markers can be high for a number of reasons....for example, mine were high and I had masses on both ovaries, I was dx with Ovarian Cancer.  Only to find out it really wasn't, I had endometriomas.  So they are not as acurate as we like to think.  You cannot plan your funeral around slightly elevated tumor markers. 

I just wanted you to know that there are many options out there now that do not make you sick, IF it turns out you have cancer.  You should read a lot of the stories of women in here with mets, they have a lot to offer others in here and they hold each other together.  They get through it. 

Anonymous

I think the key words are "If you believe in God..."

As for myself, I believe that we should have the right to control how we leave this world when we are suffering from a fatal disease.

JM0

Peggy 

mimi1030

Well, If you don't believe in God, then there is no reason to feel you have violated the law of God, so I guess you could go ahead and do what you have to do.  However the lady above happens to declare a belief in God, so therefore the rules are different for those who do believe. 

Anna_Marie_Rogers

Thanks for the support Sige.  Mimi, I feel sorry that you believe in a god who is so cruel as to want you or your family members to suffer.  I don't think it is God's will that we suffer.  The only purpose I see for suffering is that it allows other people to be noble by helping the suffering.  I don't have any candidates to do that and don't feel that I should suffer just so someone else can be compassionate.  I know my family doesn't have time for that and my significan other is just re-establishing himself.  He has alot of problems and doesn't need a sick woman to add to them.  I'm just hoping the CAT scan will turn out okay.

Ann

Sierra

Dear Anna Marie:



I agree with what Sige has posted there



and just want to send

our bright light to you today



Understanding how you could feel this way

and.. further, that we are all different

we all have our own way of feeling and coping





Heartfelt hugs to you all

at this thread



O/T Hi Sige .. be well

JoyRebecca

Having seen and been a part of the unbelievable, unempathetic, cruel things that medicine can put a human through when there is no hope....including MD's with a God Complex (as though it's a personal insult if a patient dies), I strongly believe that a patient should have the right to say,"Enough is enough."

When I am reduced to laying in a bed, not recognizing my family, and having my diapers changed, then as far as I'm concerned, I'm really not there anymore.

My family knows how strongly I feel about this and I told them I will haunt them if they artificially prolong my life.

I feel that I should be able to exit in dignity if I choose. And MY God

understands.

XX

Joy

ADK

Boy, I hadn't seen this thread before and now it seems all the more poignant to me.  My sister and I sat with my Dad in a hospital last week as he lay dying.  He didn't know we were there, he was in a coma like state.  He was 82, had heart problems, an infection in his lungs and a bowel blockage.  All we could do was keep him medicated because if they tried to treat the blockage, his lungs would have filled with fluid and he would have felt like he was drowning which would have been cruel.  He was on an IV drip of morphine which actually would have worsened his symptoms had he been able to feel anything.  Was that much different from assisted suicide?  My sister and I had to make the decision to just treat his pain.  He couldn't do surgery because he would not have survived the anesthesia which is what they would have turned to for a healthier person.  I wonder if that is what he wanted, but it felt like it was out of my control.  He was like that from Wednesday to Friday and he passed Friday night.  I didn't know what he was thinking, I don't know if he was completely out of pain and I feel horrible about it.  They kept bumping up the morphine, never to a fatal dose, but to control his pain.  I saw a tear run down his cheek at one point and asked them to bump it.  Was I wrong?  I want to think that he was tired and wanted to join my mother and brother.  I will never know for sure.

We also went through this with my Mother 17 years ago.  She wasn't on a painkiller, she just couldn't breath well and she also lay in a coma from Wednesday to Friday.  

For myself, I don't want to put my family through that.  I want to go quickly and not make them suffer and have doubts as I do right now.  I believe that we should have a right to have a say in how we leave this world, we didn't have any say about coming into it, but we should have the final determination as to how we go.  I am a Catholic and this thought is heresy in my church, but I can't see the point to suffering.  Quality of life is the most important thing in all of our lives.  When quality is gone, why fight for quantity?

JMHO

JoyRebecca

No Anne, you were not wrong. In today's medical world, you did the only thing you could do and you did it out of love. You were not wrong.

(((((((((((((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

XX

Joy

kenzie57

I agree with the first post that we give more thoughts to our animals.  We should all have a say when enough is enough.  That is what scares me the most about this disease is that I will have to suffer for long periods of time.  What is the point??  If someone wants to go through the Jesus experience, then so be it, but, I do not choose to.  I just want to go when it is time.

DFW

Mimi

I am in your camp.

getwell

   When the time comes I hope I will have the courage to end my life before I lapse into a coma, bleed out or some other awful thing. When I was 18 my father died of lung cancer. I gave him morphine injections around the clock. I can still hear him moaning my name. So many times I tried to get up the courage to OD him on the morphine but I just couldn't do it and it had nothing to do with God. My Dad asked us to never put him in the hospital and we respected his wishes. I am glad that I was at his side holding his hand when he passed. However, the emotional damage I sustained was considerable. I guess what I am saying is that I don't want my kids (21,24 and 26) to go through that trauma. This whole deal sucks and I hate that we have to think about this stuff.

Hugz to all,

PAT