Washington State Joins Oregon in Passing an Assisted Suicide Law

If Oregon Couldn't Snowball the Idea, Washington Sends the Message that They Don't Agree with Anyone Trying to Take the Law Away

This year will mark the 15^th anniversary of Oregon's Death with Dignity Law that profoundly affected the psyche of many who have to deal with a relative who's lying in bed dying from a fatal illness and causing unfathomable suffering. If you've paid attention to the evolution of this law, you'll know that it's probably the only one of the innovative laws Oregon has passed that didn't snowball around the country due to the complex feelings about it from the American populace. Or, depending on your side of the argument, it was the result of conservative state governments who didn't (and still don't) believe in assisted suicide and will try to their own dying day to bring the law down. Since 1994, federal judges and the George W. Bush Administration have all tried to bring it down--but ultimately failed to.

Since Oregon and Washington are as about as connected as Washington is to Vancouver, Canada, it was inevitable then that WA would bring assisted suicide to the fore in a ballot measure this last election and model it after Oregon's law. Yes, Oregon and Washington are truly joined by a terrestrial hip through the bridge going to Vancouver, WA, so it shouldn't be surprising that we see eye to eye on having the right to apply assisted suicide, but only in the most desperate situations. The provisions of the law that only allows a suicide under strict conditions of a doctor and the go-ahead of the patient (plus two witnesses to the agreement) are taken more seriously in Oregon than it's been made out to be. And Washington State will likely be no different.

You can be sure, though, that Washington will face as many tests over it as Oregon has in the last 15 years. Expect to see a challenge against it in the next election, perhaps in 2010 as Oregon faced in 1997 with the notorious Measure 51. When a special election was set up that year to see if the law passing had been a fluke due to certain important provisions not being delineated clearly enough, Oregon's legislature capitulated when voters overwhelmingly rejected Measure 51 which would have repealed Death with Dignity.