First Legal "Suicide" in Washington!

[♫anna♫]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30888637/ QUOTE:
First death under new Washington suicide law
66-year-old woman was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer
The Associated Press
updated 12:50 p.m. ET May 22, 2009
OLYMPIA, Wash. - A 66-year-old woman who had stage 4 pancreatic cancer is the first person to die under Washington state’s new assisted suicide law.

Linda Fleming of Sequim died Thursday night after taking drugs prescribed under the “Death with Dignity” law that took effect in March. Assisted suicide group Compassion & Choices of Washington announced Fleming’s death Friday morning.

The organization says Fleming was diagnosed last month with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

The new law was approved in last November’s election with a nearly 60 percent vote. It is based on Oregon’s measure which passed in 1997. Since then, about 401 people have used the Oregon law to end their lives.

Washington and Oregon are the only states to allow assisted suicide.

[♫anna♫]

Some Washington hospitals are not allowing the new "Death with Dignity Law" to be carried out on their property and some pharmacies are refusing to fill the lethal prescriptions for patients, who choose to end their suffering.

[jbeukema]

One would imagine that a doctor would be ethically bound to allow a terminal patient to at least die a relatively painless death instead of forcing them to continue to suffer