Just don't call it suicide, initiative's backers say

Suicide. The word's a killer at the ballot box.

You won't hear it mentioned by the people who are filing an initiative to the people Wednesday morning that would legalize what many people call "physician-assisted suicide."

Instead, they're calling it "the Death with Dignity Act." The initiative backers know voters recoil at the word suicide, with its overtones of depression and irrationality. Opponents know it, too. They call themselves the "Coalition Against Assisted Suicide." Duane French, who heads that group, says: "If someone takes their life, it's suicide."

So as the advocates gear up to try for 224,880 valid signatures by July 3 to make the fall ballot, they want people to think about an initiative meant to give people choice and control at life's end. Not about "suicide." And the fine print in the initiative even says so.

Still, advocates haven't settled on what it should be called as they start their conversations with voters. No one goes for "medicide." That was coined by convicted euthanizer Jack Kevorkian. But is it "medically assisted death"? Is it "a hastened death"? Or is it "patient-directed physician aid-in-dying"?

Polls show strong support for the concept — but also that the language will matter.

The initiative

In 1991, Initiative 119, a broader attempt to legalize physician assistance in dying in Washington, was rejected by 54 percent of the voters.

This time, supporters believe they've got a better chance. The political action committee It's My Decision has already taken in more than $319,000, thanks in no small degree to the leadership of former Gov. Booth Gardner, who has Parkinson's disease.

"Everybody I talk to says it's about time," says Gardner, 71.

And this latest initiative would be markedly different from Initiative 119.

That measure would have allowed doctors to write prescriptions for lethal drugs and to administer them if a patient was unable to do so.

The new initiative, by contrast, is modeled closely on a much more restrictive law in Oregon, which was approved by voters twice and finally enacted in 1997.

It would allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication for a mentally competent, adult resident with a terminal condition that is expected to be fatal within six months. The patient must self-administer the drugs.

Very likely, if Washington voters passed the measure, it wouldn't help Gardner, whose Parkinson's isn't considered terminal. But he's still backing it.

"This is something we should do. We should have done it a long time ago," Gardner said late last week. "It's the right thing to do — it's the Christian thing to do."

Faith-based opposition

Oregon's law allows health providers to opt out, but even so, there and in other states, the Catholic Church's political arm has aggressively opposed such measures.

Sister Sharon Park, director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, isn't afraid of the word suicide in explaining the opposition.

"Certainly, we hold that life is a gift from God and it's sacred and we're to hold it as a gift," she says. "That certainly would be why we would not be supportive of assisted suicide."

Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Catholic who counts Gardner as a mentor, said Tuesday that she prays for a cure for Parkinson's. "But I find it, on a personal level, very, very difficult to support assisted suicide," she told a group of reporters.

Such concern isn't confined to people of faith.

For example, French, the manager of the opposition coalition, also represents Not Dead Yet, a national advocacy group for the disabled. French, 54, was left quadriplegic by a diving accident 40 years ago. He fears people with disabilities could be coerced into suicide, a notion proponents reject.

"Jack Kevorkian taught us that you can cross very easily that line from terminally ill to people with disabilities, and that's our biggest concern," French said.

French and other opponents say it's deceptive that the ballot initiative doesn't use the word suicide, except to specifically say that "Actions taken in accordance with this act do not, for any purpose, constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing, or homicide, under the law."

That language is meant to avoid triggering Washington's criminal statutes, including one barring "promoting a suicide attempt."

Both sides of the argument say they expect to argue over the ballot language in court.

Voters react

To some, the word "suicide" may imply personal control over one's own life. But polls show that most people react negatively to the word.

A 2005 Gallup Poll appeared to show that voters were more enthusiastic — by 17 percentage points — about allowing doctors to take an incurably ill patient's life than to "assist the patient to commit suicide."

"The apparent conflict in values appears to be a consequence of mentioning, or not mentioning, the word 'suicide,' " wrote Gallup's David Moore.

Arline Hinckley, a spokeswoman for Death with Dignity advocates, says the word "implies violence, mental instability, or a love-struck teenager whose romance went awry. It's an irrational act by an otherwise healthy person."

By contrast, says Hinckley, a former medical social worker, a decision by a dying person to get help in what she calls "hastening death" is a "very well-thought-out, very rational decision by someone who would rather live if their physical circumstance were different."

Thirty years helping terminally ill patients, Hinckley says, has taught her that "the majority of people want to have a choice about the circumstances of their death" and control over what happens to their bodies.

Carol M. Ostrom: 206-464-2249 or costrom@seattletimes.com. Seattle Times staff reporter David Postman contributed to this report.

The information in this article, originally published January 9, 2008, was corrected January 10, 2008. Supporters of an initiative to legalize physician assistance with dying have formed a PAC called "It's My Decision." The original version of this story incorrectly called it "It's My Choice."