OLYMPIA — For months, Nancy Niedzielski of Lynnwood collected signatures for an initiative to create a legal path for terminally ill adults to take their own lives.
She waited until Wednesday to put her name on a petition that places Initiative 1000 on the ballot.
“I’m ready to sign,” she declared on the steps of the state Capitol with other supporters seated behind her and opponents of the measure standing on a sidewalk a short distance away.
Then, her head turned skyward and her voice cracked with emotion, she said, “This is for you, Randy. I love you most of all and then some.”
Randy, her husband, died of brain cancer two years ago this month. He wished such a law existed then and she said he made her promise to get the law changed after his death.
Wednesday she moved closer to keeping her word as she and proponents turned in the last batch of the 320,000 signatures they gathered. They need 224,880 of those to be from registered voters to earn a place on the November ballot.
Initiative 1000 is called the Death With Dignity Initiative by its backers and would make Washington the nation’s second state, after Oregon, to allow physician-assisted suicide. Oregon’s 10-year-old law is the model for Washington’s effort.
The initiative covers mentally competent adults diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months. It allows them to obtain lethal doses of medication from doctors that they will self-administer in order to die.
Former Gov. Booth Gardner, one of the driving forces behind the I-1000 initiative, said the campaign’s success will hinge on voters understanding this is about providing a right where none exists today.
“It’s their right,” he said, referring to those deemed eligible by physicians. “They may never use it, but they will have it. It’s a choice. A person still has to make a leap from ‘I don’t want to do it’ to ‘I do want to do it.’”
Opponents who showed up at the Capitol expressed confidence voters will reject the measure once they are educated about it.
“Today, the hard work begins,” said Duane French, a leader of the disabilities rights group Not Dead Yet of Washington.
He and other members of the coalition fighting I-1000 said it creates liability risks for the state and lacks adequate safeguards of the process and regulation of the physicians prescribing the medications.
They said they fear this measure will be seen as a viable and attractive option for people facing health care bills they can’t pay and a prolonged life of pain.
“You think it won’t turn into the euthanasia of the willing?” Dr. Susan Rutherford said.
Joelle Brouner of Not Dead Yet of Washington, who is afflicted with cerebral palsy, said she’s counting on voters recognizing the larger social implications.
“When a state sanctions death, it erodes a moral standard that the lives of Washingtonians are all valuable,” she said.
This campaign is expensive and will only get more costly.
Through mid-June, supporters had raked in roughly $1.24 million and spent more than $1 million on signature-gathering, fundraising outreach, literature and staffing.
Opponents had raised a little under $100,000 and spent about half. But a major foe, the Catholic Church, has yet to chip in. And another group, the Washington State Medical Association, could invest in the fight, too.
Niedzielski is not engaged in the money raising and strategy writing. She’s simply determined to keep her promise.
That’s why she spent last weekend in Ocean Shores rounding up signers on the petition just a Frisbee toss away from a professional woodcarving competition.
“A fair amount of people know what it is about,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
While she’s been driven by the memory of her husband, she found in most conversations she did more listening to stories of others than sharing her own.
“People want somebody to bear witness to what they’ve gone through,” she said. “I feel their pain.”
She said she’s not daunted by the task ahead and is focused on helping voters gain understanding this will not establish an easy route to death.
“You cannot lightly choose to do this and people do not choose to do this lightly,” she said. “It is a very serious decision.”
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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