Word: gardner
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...Booth Gardner, who served as Washington's governor for two terms in the 1980s and '90s, is now leading a ballot initiative that, if approved, would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of narcotics to terminally ill patients who want to end their own lives. The campaign is personal for Gardner. Diagnosed more than a decade ago with Parkinson's disease, a debilitating condition, his first reaction was "how can I take control over this," he says. "Then I realized that there was no way I could. I wanted to change that." Gardner has repeatedly said he would...
More than 80% of American adults agree with Gardner, a new report shows. Another two-thirds support laws similar to Oregon's, which give people the "right to die" through physician-assisted suicide, according to the survey of 1,070 Americans released May 15 by ELDR Magazine, a publication aimed at senior citizens. More than 80% of respondents also said that, if terminally ill and in pain, they would want to be made unconscious even if it hastened death. "A painful or prolonged death is something everyone worries about," said Dave Bunnell, ELDR's editor...
Washington's proposed law would mirror Oregon's almost exactly. Proponents will have to collect 225,000 petition signatures by July 3 to get it on the ballot, and Gardner is confident they will do so. But if history is any indication, the initiative has little chance of passing in November. Voters have struck down dozens of similar "right to die" laws since the late 1980s, including in Washington State in 1992 when Gardner was governor...
...past, the Catholic Church and other religious groups have succeeded in rallying enough committed opponents to come out and vote against the measures. This year heading up a coalition against the Washington effort is Chris Carlson, a Seattle resident and public relations executive - and a formidable match for Gardner. Carlson also suffers from Parkinson's. And he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2005. "And I'm still around three years later," Carlson says. "But what if I'd been able to give up hope, take my own life too early...
...Gardner dismisses these worries, noting that none of them have materialized in Oregon in the decade since its law took effect: men and women, for example, have used the law in equal numbers. "You can't live in a perfect world," he says. "But why should anyone be denied the choice to end their life if they want to?" Gardner, who does not suffer from a terminal disease, would not be eligible to take his own life under the proposed law. That is a fight for another day, he says, before adding, "If I can do anything to help people...