Oregon Public Broadcasting

Former Washington Governor Booth Gardner Wednesday filed a right-to-die ballot measure with the Secretary of State. It’s closely modeled on Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.

Already there’s a fight over the use of the term “assisted suicide.” Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

Arline Hinckley is a social worker and one of the leaders of Washington’s right-to-die campaign. She argues the term assisted suicide is biased and pejorative.

Arline Hinckley: “Suicide in our culture has negative connotation. It conjures up images of terrorists or severely depressed people or even teenagers whose romance has gone awry."

Hinckley calls suicide an act of an otherwise healthy person. She says it’s not suicide when a terminally ill patient decides to hasten one’s death.

The Ninth Circuit Court and Oregon law seem to support this argument. But Duane French, a quadriplegic who’s leading the opposition campaign, rejects that logic.

Duane French: “Suicide, if you look up the definition in Webster’s, is someone taking their own life. And when you injest a lethal dose of medication that is taking your own life.”

Supporters of the Washington initiative have until July to collect 225,000 valid voter signatures to put the measure on this November’s ballot.