Right-to-die champion
OLYMPIA, Wash. ooth Gardner, a two- term Democratic governor who later in life spearheaded a campaign that made Washington the second state in the U.S. to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill, has died after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 76.
Gardner died last week at his Tacoma home of complications related to the disease, family spokesman Ron Dotzauer said.
“We’re very sad to lose my father, who had been struggling with a difficult disease for many years, but we are relieved to know that he’s at rest now and his fight is done,” said Gail Gant, Gardner’s daughter, in a statement.
He was the northwestern state’s 19th governor.
The millionaire heir to the Weyerhaeuser timber fortune led the state from 1985 to 1993 following terms as Pierce County executive, state senator and business school dean.
Since then, he had worked as a U.S. trade ambassador in Geneva, in youth sports and for a variety of philanthropic works.
But his biggest political effort in his later years was his successful Death with Dignity campaign in
B2008 that ultimately led to the passage of the controversial law that mirrored a law that had been in place in Oregon since 1997. The law allows terminally ill adults with six months or less left to live to request a lethal dose of medication from their doctors.
Gardner knew that he wouldn’t qualify to use the law because Parkinson’s disease itself, while incurable, is not fatal. But at the time, he said his worsening condition made him an advocate for those who want control over how they die.
“It’s amazing to me how much this can help people get peace of mind,” Gardner told The Associated Press at the time.
“There’s more people who would like to have control over their final days than those who don’t.”
The Washington state law took effect in March 2009, and since then more than 250 people have used it to obtain lethal doses of medication.
A documentary about that campaign, The Last Campaign of Booth Gardner, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2010.
In 1991, Gardner announced he wouldn’t seek a third term, saying he was “out of gas.”
He went on to become the U.S. ambassador to the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade in Geneva.
While abroad, in 1995, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Gardner didn’t make his battle with the disease public until 2000.
He announced his plan for a ballot measure to allow assisted suicide in 2006 as he continued to battle Parkinson’s.
Washington state had already rejected a similar assisted suicide initiative in 1991, but after a contentious campaign, where Gardner contributed $470,000 of his own money of the $4.9 million raised in support of the measure, nearly 58 per cent of voters approved the new law in 2008.
In his biography, when asked how he wanted to be remembered, he responded, “I tried to help people.”