like there is life with dignity! there is no way i should have to suffer unbearable pain during the end because of somebody elses rules. when there is no chance of recovery and it gets to be too much, absolutely we should be able to get help to end it.

"Yes" way to go Booth

I agree - death with dignity should be a choice. I voted for it as a resident of Oregon several years ago. Now that I am back home, I would be happy to vote for it again. They are not asking to die because they are depressed - they are asking to be able to choose the time and circumstances for a natural part of "life" when it becomes inevitable. Would that we should love our fellow man so much as to allow them this choice.

I am a citizen of Oregon, so I can attest to how the law has worked here. Over the years the law has been in effect, none of the outcomes predicted by various groups opposed to this initiative have been born out. No one has been pressured by greedy relatives, and those with disabilities havn't been urged or pressured, either. In other words, the "slippery slope" argument has been proven false. The numbers of those requesting the lethal prescriptions each year has always been higher than those who have actually filled the prescriptions. The number of those actually ending their lives has been always been less than those who got their pills. It's really about feeling you have some sort of control over your own body and life, at a time when everything seems out of control. So yes, it should be legal for all terminally ill people.

I am a nurse and I have seen terminal ill patients go through hell before they were allowed to die. When it is my time to go, if this law is not approved in Washington, I will move to Oregon. It should be my choice how I want to die.

Absolutely!!! For me, all it took was watching one parent go through much pain for days without adequate pain relief to convince me that this is unacceptable. The greatest fear people have about dying is inadequate pain relief, which does happen. People should have a choice on how they want to die.

This is compassion gone awry. It is delusional to think that suicide--no matter what palatable name is given to it--is ever the "right thing to do." It is not. I don't have answers to all of the concerns and personal experiences mentioned above. I just know that as a society we cannot continue to blur the lines between what is right and what is wrong on the basis of fear. There are natural and spiritual laws that exist. We keep trying to rewrite them to suit ourselves, but we are clearly NOT succeeding in creating a happier, trouble-free life -- or death for ourselves.

Who made you God?

who are you referring to playing God? the people who want to decide when somebody will die, like god? or the people who want to let god do his work and let them die when it is their time?

Who gave you the authority to take life? (including your own) Who made you God? It's just a question.

The people preventing us from ending our death sentence early are selfish self righteous zealots that fear death and God's punishment. It doesn't make sense for them to sentence a dying person to endure more pain and to bleed their family dry of all their money so they themselves can sleep well. It is my life and my decision. When God decides it is my time to go, do not prevent me from going with machines and greedy doctors. If you prevent me from ending my life, if and when it comes to that, I hope you die an excruciating death and your family and friends are made to suffer and experience the pain and unnecessarily high medical costs for absolutely no reason. Their burdon to keep you alive and miserable will not be adequate payment, draw it out as long as possible until you bleed them dry and make your family hate you. Give me liberty or give me death. I want the choice. Please.

My mother had a terminal condition with a brain abcess and menengitis.

Her doctor and a consulting physician agreed that she was terminal and told my father to make final arrangements.

The situation was hopeless. Nobody wanted her to linger and suffer.

Being compassionate, my father and my mother's family would have agreed to assisted suicide if it had been legal. My mother would have chosen to "let go" if someone would have been allowed to compassionately assist her.

This all occurred before I was born 42+ years ago.

My sister and brother would have been robbed of their mother at a young age; I would not have been born to my parents.

My mother is alive and well, happily married, and has been a kind blessing to many people throughout her life.

I guess "terminal" ain't always so..........

If it makes the ballot, I'll be voting "no."

Simple: Those under 65 vote no, those over 65 vote yes. Just wait.

I hate to bring up old news but it is okay for a religion, a judge and Children's hospital to let a 14 year old choose his own death but not an elderly or terminal adult. I posed this question before asking for explanation and it seemed to fall on death ears. Funny how in the name of religion a child can choose to die in the name of Jehovah but an adult has to file an initiative??? I would love to hear from the religious zealots on this one but alas I expect nothing again.

It's about time the people of Washington get on the bandwagon! I had a good friend who was terminally ill. He was in great pain, but the little Godlets out there said he had to suffer (I suppose suffering was good for his soul?). Finally, he took an overdose of meds, then sliced a couple of veins, made it into his hot tub, and bled out. What a horrid thing for his wife to come home to find! And, he was forced to die alone instead of with his beloved by his side. As an old TV show stated many years ago, we have an inalienable right to die. Doctors won't be forced to assist, they can refuse. Patients can find new doctors.

Previewing your Comment

One's own body is the ultimate piece of personal property. Only the owner has the right to decide its disposal, not clerics, not hand-wringing do-gooders, not nine old nags in black muu muus on the Supreme Court, and certainly not politicians. As in the disposition of all personal property, the choice belongs exclusively to the owner.

One salient issue here is the level of involvement by physicians, who have taken an oath to do no harm. My son is a physician who has ended many lives by removing comatose patients from life-support systems at the behest of the family, but he will not violate his oath by prematurely ending the life of a conscious patient, even if that patient begs for it.

The "Right To Death" law would be a good one, but the decision has to be the patient's alone, and the result must be by his own hand: the patient must be able to at least push a button to initiate a lethal injection on his own, or consciously ingest a lethal concoction.

If the decision to prematurely end a life is deferred to the "well-intentioned" politicians of the State, we are all on a slippery slope, ala "Soylent Green."

I do not believe that assisted suiside is right. Only God has the right to determine how long a person lives.

If a dog was terminal and facing great pain we would call it humanitarian to put it down but somehow we find ourselves unable to act with the same compassion for a human in the same condition. I have seen others who in their misery begged to die. I hope that if I ever face the same conditions in my life someone will have enough compation to treat me like a dog!

Don Schultz

If you vote no, you will be giving the government the right to completely control your life. Don't they have enough control already? I watched my mother die over the span of six years. Close to the end, she was so drugged up by her doctor that she was completely bedridden and in more pain than anyone should have to endure. A few years later, I watched my father go through this kind of pain. He was so thin that the skin hung on his body and he was in the same horrible pain. His death took 5 years. My husband and I have pledged to each other that we will not let that happen to us. The comment made on the news is that suicide is illegal. How many of the successful people are sitting in jail? My body is mine and mine alone. Does the government have sooooo much time on their hands that they don't have anything else to do but meddle in others lives? My husband and and I have already made the decision that we will not go through that suffering and will not put our children in that position. GO BOOTH GARDNER!!! Where do we sign???

My wife's uncle died of lung cancer. He begged the doctor to give him something to assist his death, but his daughter (a nurse) not only refused to allow it, but wouldn't allow them to give him enought pain medicine to relieve his pain because she didn't want him to get "hooked" on narcotics. His was one of the most horrifing deaths I have ever seen. Sign me up Booth!
Don Bigbee

Absolutley !! Where do I sign?

Okay, here is my take on this issue. I am a Christian. I do not believe in suicide. I feel like a person might miss out on something great if they kill themselves. However, if a person is dying, and in massive pain that meds cannot help, I
think it is perfectly okay to end your life.

My dad died of prostate cancer in 2003 in Vancouver , WA. Even when that happened with my father, I think it is much better to let the owner of life, ONLY GOD, to decide how long we will live in this world.Who made life has the power and the only right to take it away, not us.

Thanks Tina - I agree. I lost my Dad this past summer - it was a long, slow, and painful process for him and us. It hurt to see him hurt so much. But, to do it any other way would have been against his wishes and would have been taking God's plan out of the picture. Dad died with dignity and surrounded by the love of family - a deeper more real love than we had ever experienced before. In his death and dying he taught me the greatest lesson on the value of life.

Those of you who have some religious objection to the concept of death with dignity can quite simply choose not to make use of it if such a law is passed. I am fed up with the "religious" assuming they have a right to tell the rest of us how to live or in this case how to die. Stop trying to influence public policy and the law. To continue to do so, and if successful, the USA will become a Christian version of those countries that blend government and their Islamic faith. Do not try to say it would be otherwise, that somehow Christian extremists are somehow more fair and just than Islamic extremists. Both groups think they are morally superior.

I am fully for 'death with dignity'. so long as the folks in charge are aware of any pressures or greed (as the oregonian mentioned the slippery slope debate that their state didnt have an issue with), i'm defintely for having the choice to end my life should i be suffering with a terminal illness and thus making my family suffer as well. no one wants undue pain, pain that will never go away, that prevents any sort of living, that keeps one from the basic aspects of life. why torture someone like that. if they want to die, help them go peacefully and not have to try to escape the hospital and slit their wrists or bite the bullet literally. how much more pain that causes the living to see their beloved dead in such a gruesom way when it could have been so much easier. not to mention the politics should a terminally ill person get to die at home and a loved one helps them die after the sick persons begging, now we have cops involved and possible manslaughter charges when they were just trying to help.

i'm not against the thought of in offering this for the concious that the patient should at least click a button to make the drugs enter their system. that would let them choose when they were ready. if they wanted to die with their family at their side, they could. if they wanted to die when their family went out of the room, they could. sounds like a great plan.

dont let some peoples religion stop the rest of us from making our own choices. if religion can let you choose to die or live, we should have the same choices without having to call on a church or other religious body to back us up.

mention religion and bad news is bound to follow. i agree with laurel, if you want to die a slow painful death have at it and keep your phony self serving crap to your self. with all of the problems religion cause in the world i often wonder what it would be like with out it. im having a hard time thinking it could be worse.
keep it behind your church doors where it belongs.

KEEP RELIGION OUT OF THE DEBATE! You con(men)servatives don't stop do you? You have to control everyone else's life don't you! You are pro-life when it comes to abortion and death with dignity, but pro-death when it comes to the death penalty and killing innocent Iraqies.

Keep religion out of politics! Without it, there is no rational argument against death with dignity or abortion.

Don't you dare refer to God in this debate. You conservatives are not God either, so pleae don't act like he speaks to you or you know what God wants because you do not. Plain and simple. Keep this for the people. If you do not agree with death with dignity, (like abortion) DON'T PARTAKE IN IT, but DO NOT stick your nose into others business who believe in it. Stop dictating your so called moral sense of the world on all of us!! Keep Religion out of Politics!!

For those who are making that argument that ONLY GOD should be able to decide when someone dies, then should we do away with Hospitals and Doctors completely? If you get sick, you get sick and if you die then it was only God's will, right? Lets do away with antibiotics, pain medication and doctors in general. If it is all in God's hands and we die only when God wants us to, then it shouldn't matter if you receive medication or medical treatment when sick or injured.

Whatever happens, happens, right??

why just the terminal?