Vote ‘no’ to affirm life?!

Very tricky wording on this ballot initiative in Washington State.

If approved by voters Nov. 4, Initiative 1000 would bring Oregon-like assisted suicide to Washington.

Get that? A ‘yes’ vote would approve assisted suicide. A ‘no’ vote would uphold the sanctity and dignity of human life until natural death.

But the public is only hearing the message that is best funded. And…

Contributions by supporters of a physician-assisted suicide initiative in the state of Washington are outpacing those from opponents by nearly four to one, and nearly two-thirds of those pro-referendum gifts are from advocacy organizations and their representatives or a former governor and his family.

The ‘Right to Die’ movement is well-funded and mobilized in active organization.

People going about their business and worried about the economic crisis and the presidential election aren’t paying too much attention to this one. What’s at stake?

Assisted suicide became legal in Oregon in 1997, making it the only state in the country to permit the practice. Legalized assisted suicide enables doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs for a patient but not to administer them.

This initiative has been dubbed ‘Oregon plus One’. For obvious reasons.

“Make no mistake, this is not a grassroots political campaign arising out of great urgency from the people,” bioethics specialist Wesley Smith noted on his weblog. “Rather, it is a carefully planned political move originating from out-of-state assisted suicide advocates looking for a ripe plum to pick.

“The mantra of the assisted suicide forces is ‘Oregon plus One,’ believing that if one more state falls, the wind will again be at their backs.”

And if it passes one more state, in this case Washington state, the next one to fall is California. Then, it’s a domino effect from there.

We don’t like to think of these things when life is going normally. As in the case of Terri Schiavo, anyone can fall into an impaired state with no warning. We’re having a national debate on several other issues, but this one remains confusing and off the public radar.

Here are the facts.

There are plenty of stories to fill in the details of why ‘death with dignity’ is a killer euphemism.