Oregon Public Broadcasting

Activists in Washington are collecting signatures for a November ballot measure modeled on Oregon's Death with Dignity Act.  As Pete Springer reports, the campaign is getting funding from assisted suicide supporters in Oregon.

The Oregon Death with Dignity Political Action Committee made a $200,000 donation to the Washington campaign.

The money will help signature gathering efforts that began last week for a ballot initiative patterned after Oregon’s ten-year-old law.

Peg Sandeen is the executive director of the Death with Dignity national center.

Sandeen says the Washington effort is led by former governor Booth Gardner, who was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Peg Sandeen: “The Parkinson's has made him look at the end of his life and has made him contemplate the end of his life.”

Sandeen is quick to point out that Gardner’s disease would not qualify him for aid in dying under the proposed initiative, but says this will likely be his last political campaign.

She also says this is the first significant campaign on the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act in 2006.