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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   More about Initiative 1000 The patient must be at least 18 years old and a Washington resident. At least two doctors must verify that the patient will likely die within six months, is mentally competent and is not being coerced by anyone. The patient must make two oral requests and one written request for the lethal dose. There is a 15-day waiting period between the first oral request and the written request, and a 48-hour waiting period after the written request before the doctor writes the prescription. Two people must witness the patient writing the request. At least one of the witnesses must be someone who does not work for a health-care facility and is not related to the patient. The patient must take the lethal dose without assistance from anyone else. Questions and answers Q: When does the law go into effect? A: March 4 -- 120 days after the election. Q: Will life insurance policies be affected if someone chooses physician-assisted suicide? A: The law specifies that physician-assisted suicide will have no effect on life insurance policies, so an insurance company won't be able to deny a claim for that reason. Q: Can doctors, pharmacists or hospitals and other health-care facilities refuse to participate in physician-assisted suicide? A: Doctors and private hospitals who disagree on philosophical, moral or religious grounds can choose to not participate in physician-assisted suicide. The law does not state whether pharmacists will be able to opt out of filling a lethal prescription, but backers of the law say pharmacists will not be forced to fill the prescription. Q: Will families have a say before a patient takes a lethal dose? A: The law requires that doctors recommend patients notify next of kin, but the patient is not required to do so. Q: What goes on the death certificate? A: The death certificate of a person who chooses physician-assisted suicide will state the underlying terminal illness as the cause of death. Q: Will there be a supervisory board to investigate abuses and other potential problems? A: It's not yet clear whether a board specific to this practice will convene. Oregon Death with Dignity leaders say the practice in their state is supervised like any other medical practice. Q: What's the difference between physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia? A: Physician-assisted suicide requires that the patient self-administer the lethal dose. Doctors perform euthanasia when they administer a lethal dose to a patient.   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Monday, November 10, 2008 Physician-assisted suicide law goes into effect in March Krista J. Kapralos Herald Writer With Washington voters last week approving physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, doctors, pharmacists and other health-care workers are scrambling to figure out how the controversial law will change the way they do business. Initiative 1000, known as the Death with Dignity Act, will go into effect as law in March -- four months after voters approved it. The people behind the initiative said they wanted to leave plenty of time for everyone to understand exactly what it means. Patients with six months or less to live can now ask their doctors for a prescription for lethal medicine they would self-administer to end their own lives. Doctors opposed to the practice aren't required to write such a prescription, and pharmacists opposed to the practice aren't required to fill it. Private hospitals, such as Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, a Roman Catholic institution, aren't required to allow patients to take lethal drugs. "Anybody can opt out," said Eli Stutsman, an Oregon lawyer who wrote the text of both the Oregon and Washington physician-assisted suicide laws. "Entire health-care institutions can opt out. We disagree with our opponents, but we respect their right to opt out." Voters approved the initiative by 59 percent -- a majority some say constitutes a landslide. The vote came 17 years after the state first considered physician-assisted suicide. The initiative failed then. Advocates say Washington voters likely felt more comfortable with the initiative this year because Oregon has shown that the worst-case scenario situations some opponents warned against aren't likely to occur. Oregon voters approved their Death with Dignity Act in 1994. "Trust that your neighbor to the south has dealt with this readily," Stutsman said. The Washington State Medical Association opposed the initiative, but now plans to support doctors who choose to participate in the practice. "We continue to oppose physician-assisted suicide, but we respect the public's wishes," association spokeswoman Jennifer Hanscom said. "We don't want to be a barrier to this law." The association has posted the entire law on its Web site and will provide doctors with a summary in the next association newsletter. Stutsman warns against using the phrase "assisted suicide" to describe the law. Assisted suicide without a doctor's involvement and within the confines of this new law is a crime, and no one is arguing to change that, he said. He also noted that only doctors specializing in end-of-life care are legally able to write a prescription for a lethal drug. A patient won't be able to doctor-shop to get a prescription, he said. It must be written by that patient's primary care physician. "We want no part of Jack Kevorkian," he said, referring to the Michigan doctor who was jailed for administering lethal injections on patients. "We would have put Jack Kevorkian in jail in Oregon, and I would have joined that cause," he said. Backers of Washington's initiative said former Gov. Booth Gardner, the man behind this year's initiative, has said that he would prefer a law that would allow him to end his own life, but he also thinks the law that voters approved this week is good public policy, Stutsman said. "Booth was very honest," he said. "He acknowledges that his own disease process will likely preclude him from hastening his own death. But he understands the difference between his personal desire and public policy. He knows that as a matter of public policy, this is appropriate." Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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