Letters to the Editor

Death-with-dignity debate

Attorney misconstrues Initiative 1000's structure and intent

Editor, The Times:

While attorney Margaret Dore is entitled to her opinion, she did not base her opposition to I-1000 on a moral position, nor on the facts of the initiative ["The indignity of I-1000: Backers' claims misleading," Times, guest commentary, Aug. 20]. In fact, the Death with Dignity initiative is based precisely on an Oregon law that has been tried and tested for 10 years. The act requires that medication be "self-administered" and defines "self-administration" as "a qualified person's act of administering medication to end his or her life in a humane and dignified manner." No problems such as the "greedy son" imagined by Dore have come to light.

Nor are they likely, with two witnesses required, precisely because one must not be an heir. The person requesting an end to his or her suffering must be judged competent by a mental-health professional, another safeguard.

Because the law requires two written requests by the dying person, separated by days, and the written opinion of two physicians, safeguards are in place to prevent abuses by heirs. Does it make sense that a "greedy heir" would chance violating the law, in collaboration with another witness, when their relative is within six months of dying naturally?

No, the purpose is self-determination to mitigate a painful death.

— Sarajane Siegfriedt, Seattle

Initiative about choice, not forced decisions

As a retired police chief with leukemia, I am stunned and furious at how The Times allowed Margaret Dore to misrepresent the facts of the I-1000 initiative.

No, Ms. Dore, it is you who is misleading, not the backers of this initiative. I-1000 mirrors the Oregon law that has survived court challenges for 10 years. Those who qualify must be of sound mind and terminally ill. People in that position do not need to be "pressured" to ingest the drug themselves because they are suffering, like my mother in Oregon was when she begged me to process the paperwork for her.

She was dying from an inoperable tumor the size of a grapefruit in her chest, bedridden and in horrible pain. I loved her enough to do what I could to end her suffering, and I want to be able to do the same for myself when my time comes. This law is about choice, not manipulation. No one will ever be "pressured" to take their own life.

They will only have the choice to do so if they are of sound mind, already dying, suffering and want to shorten that suffering.

— Mike Jaquish, Gig Harbor

Leave the dying alone

In reading Margaret Dore's opposition to I-1000, she raises legitimate questions. Having said that, a document can be picked apart by any good attorney.

What I find interesting, and it probably says a lot about her, is in stating that the "safeguards are illusory," the only person she names capable of heinous activity is a "greedy son."

Since I have no "greedy sons," only two wonderful daughters and a wonderful son-in-law, I intend to vote for I-1000.

I would suggest Dore keep her legal opinions on "dignity" to herself and stay out of the painful homes and bedrooms of the dying.

— John Kastien, Kent

Initiative is, in fact, a terminally bad solution

I applaud Margaret Dore's piece urging "no" on I-1000, the "Death With Dignity" initiative and the decision by the King County Bar Association to decline to support it.

America's leaders need to responsibly face our long-neglected health-care crisis. I-1000 is the wrong approach, offering cheap, doctor-approved fatal substances to seriously ill and underinsured patients as a substitute for expensive lifesaving treatments. I-1000 teems with perverse incentives.

It is a managed-care, cost-cutter's invention that coerces our caring doctors to undertreat us. Recently, an Oregon woman with lung cancer was notified that the Oregon health-care plan would not cover her treatment, but that it would cover doctor-assisted suicide.

The lethal substances cost less than $100. With this situation, an incentive is created for health-care insurers and HMOs to steer mom or dad to just take the pill and save insurers money.

While its backers tout the suicide option as "voluntary," this guarantee becomes elusive when the unseen gun of looming bankruptcy and foreclosure is pointed at underinsured families' heads.

I-1000 is counterfeit for genuine reform, cloaked in propaganda to resemble humanitarianism.

— Jeffrey Golin, Fremont, Calif

Fear isn't informative

After reading Margaret Dore's commentary, I was struck by the fear-mongering audacity of the example she chose and the inaccurate portrayal of what the initiative actually permits.

Yes, I immediately read the actual initiative and encourage everyone to do so to get a clearer and more truthful picture of I-1000.

It is based on the Oregon law that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

As far as I know, there has not been one case that even remotely resembles the one Dore presented.

Having witnessed my mother's excruciating death less than a year ago, and knowing her wish to not go through what she was forced to experience, I am all for letting people have that personal choice.

This is not an issue that should be based on politics or letting the government decide for us.

Hopefully, we can all find the compassion to let each individual, who, diagnosed with a very limited time left to live, leave this world on humane and loving terms.

— Gail Sorensen, Issaquah

In defense of a mom

Letter writer has it wrong about Pam Pugel

It is not unusual to be inundated with insulting political ads.

In yesterday's Northwest Voices, we're also exposed to inaccurate and insulting comments by Gary Mortensen with his attack on Pam Pugel, the single mother featured in Dino Rossi's TV ad ["Post primary debate: Rossi ad misleads through implication," Aug. 21].

Pugel doesn't spend her time "hitting Bellevue boutiques." She spends a lot of her time working with me to sell coating products to refineries, pulp mills, chemical plants and shipyards in the West.

She's about as far from Mortensen's portrayal as you can get.

Last week she spent time with her three boys pressure washing her house so she can repaint it.

Sound like your typical soccer mom on Mercer Island?

She spends a lot of time in traffic, too. Just like the rest of us who have to get from point A to B around here in this dysfunctional traffic situation and leadership vacuum.

She really doesn't need anyone to defend her, but I can't let Mortensen's ignorant statements pass without a reality check.

— Richard Stratton, Beaux Arts