Washington State has its first death after passing assisted suicide law

From The New York Times. The AP story, which has the pictured photo from a pro-assisted-suicide rally, is here.

SEATTLE — A woman with pancreatic cancer has become the first person to die under a law passed last year allowing doctor-assisted suicide in Washington, according to an advocacy group that pushed for the law.

The woman, Linda Fleming, 66, of Sequim, Wash., died May 21 after taking lethal medication prescribed by a doctor under the law, according to a news release by the group, Compassion and Choices of Washington. The release said Ms. Fleming received a diagnosis of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer a month ago, and “she was told she was actively dying.”

Ms. Fleming was quoted in the release as saying: “I am a very spiritual person, and it was very important to me to be conscious, clear-minded and alert at the time of my death. The powerful pain medications were making it difficult to maintain the state of mind I wanted to have at my death.”

In November, voters approved the Death with Dignity Act, 58 percent to 42 percent, making Washington the second state — after Oregon — to allow assisted suicide. The laws in both states have been deeply controversial, particularly among religious groups. Washington passed its law after the United States Supreme Court in 2006 rejected an effort by the Justice Department to block Oregon’s law, which took effect in 1998.

In Montana, a state judge ruled in December that doctor-assisted suicide was legal under the state’s Constitution, but the state is appealing that decision.

Steve Hopcraft, a spokesman for Compassion and Choices, said the group was “not leading a campaign in any other state right now.”

The Washington and Oregon laws allow terminally ill patients who are at least 18 and have been found mentally competent to self-administer lethal drugs under the prescription of a doctor.

In Oregon, 401 people used the law through 2008. Since the law took effect in Washington in March, six prescriptions for lethal medication have been dispensed, but a spokesman for the State Department of Health, Donn Moyer, said it had not received any forms saying a patient had used the medication. Under the law, doctors who write such a prescription have 30 days to report that it had been used.

Mr. Moyer, saying privacy laws prevented the state from providing information about a specific death, said he could not confirm Ms. Fleming’s death.

In Oregon, not everyone who received a prescription has taken the drugs.

Some critics fear that physician-assisted suicide will pressure people with terminal illnesses who have low incomes or are disabled to end their lives to avoid becoming a financial burden to loved ones. Supporters cite studies that they say have refuted that idea.

Ms. Fleming, who was divorced, filed for bankruptcy in 2007 with $5,800 in credit card debt, according to court records and a lawyer who had represented her, Hugh Haffner.

Mr. Haffner said that when she filed for bankruptcy, Ms. Fleming, a former social worker, had been unable to work because of a disability and lived in subsidized housing on $643 in monthly disability checks.

Virginia Peterhansen, who said she had befriended Ms. Fleming about six months ago through a book group, said Ms. Fleming bought a 1982 Oldsmobile station wagon days before she was told she had cancer and that she had hoped to learn to contra dance.

Robb Miller, the executive director of Compassion and Choices of Washington, said that he had spoken to Ms. Fleming and that, although he was unaware of her bankruptcy filing, her situation presented “none of the red flags” that might have given his group pause in supporting her. He said Ms. Fleming’s two children and her former husband “were involved and supported her choice.”

The family could not be reached for comment.