Street roots., November 25, 2016, Page 5, Image 5

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Street Roots • Nov. 25-Dec. 1,2016
Page 5
ROBERTS, from page 4
to start talking about death. None of us are
getting out alive. And if we talk about it, we
make the journey easier for everyone, for
people who face death themselves, and
families that experience the grief. Silence is
not our friend on this subject!
For me, it just meant that I had to find a
way to hopefully change my culture’s view
on the way they were approaching death.
We didn’t want to see grieving; we didn’t
want to see weeping; we tried to find ways
to cover it up. In other countries they have
things like wailing walls and recognitions of
the end of life, and here in this country, we
were pretty hidden about how we handle it
Barbara Coombs Lee: Because of the
taboo, there is this pent-up demand, this
pent-up yearning for people who do want to
talk about it So when you become known -
as Barbara has become known - as a safe
person to whom you can talk about death
and dying, people flock to you. You go to a
party and everyone has a story and they
want to tell their story. And if they feel they
can’t tell it to anyone else, they will tell it to
the first safe person they meet, and I’m sure
Barbara has had lots of experience with
that.
J.Z.: I’m curious about those early
conversations with your husband, Frank.
Before he was sick, he was looking to pass a
Death with Dignity Act in the State
Legislature. What were those discussions like?
How have your thoughts evolved since then?
B.R.: By the time Frank was declared
terminally ill, he had already introduced the
Death with Dignity bill three times into the
Oregon Legislature, so it wasn’t new subject
matter to us. I thought he was a little crazy
the first time he did it because it was so
controversial, and for a lot of his legislative
colleagues, it was too scary of a subject to
discuss even: the kind of thing you don’t
want to talk about. Frank had been willing to
talk about it and introduce legislation, and
even though he was a senior member of the
Senate and president pro tem of our party
at that time, he could not move his
colleagues on this issue, but he kept
introducing it. By the time we got the
terminal diagnosis, we’d had lots of
discussions on the topic. He had had cancer
for several years. One kind of cancer would
go away and it would metastasize
somewhere else. So we were accustomed to
dealing with the threat of cancer for him.
But this time it was pretty definite what was
going to happen. So we felt comfortable
talking about it.
We redid his will; we planned his
memorial service; we took a trip to Hawaii
just so the two of us could spend some time
adjusting to the new diagnosis and
preparing for the end of his life. So for us, it
was an open discussion for all of the months
that remained. We got the diagnosis that
said you’ve got a year at most to live, and he
lived it without any more treatment, without
any more interference with his body
physically. He just lived it.
J.Z.: No regrets.
B.R.: No. And he knew he had made the
right decision. The Death with Dignity bill
was circulating when he was dying, and he
Election Day 2016 ;
BY JOANNE ZUHL
she was elected governor in 1990. The
words hold true a quarter of a century
later, as Roberts’ continues to travel and
speak as a senior statesman on issues of
progressive politics, end-of-life choices
and empowering women in government,
an issue particularly important to the
former governor as we discuss the
results of the presidential election.
STAFF WRITER
n her autobiography, “Up the Capital
Steps: A Woman’s March to the
Governorship,” Barbara Roberts
writes of a dynamic time in Oregon’s
history.
And if you are lucky, she notes, “you
get to make a little history as well.”
For Roberts, whose career is pressed
into countless books on Oregon politics,
luck had little to do with it
In 1990, Roberts was elected the first
woman governor of Oregon, becoming at
the time one of only 10 women to
achieve the title nationwide. She took
office on the heels of a national
recession, when Oregon’s timber
inrhistry was in revolt over the Northern
spotted owl, and when the notion of
physician-assisted suicide was considered
a topic unsuitable for public debate.
| Before she left office in 1994, she had
I
raised the bar on human rights and
environmental preservation, as well as
changing how government gets done in ?
Salem - the latter earning her accolades
from Financial World Magazine. She
fought for gay rights and responsible
land-use policies, and against Measure 5,
the controversial property tax cap that
' remains in
today of the Oregon Housing Trust and
the Oregon Health Plan because of
Roberts' work to establish a lasting safety
net for the most vulnerable Oregonians, g
She did so white raising a child with
autism and tending to her husband in the
final yearn of his life. Oregon’s landmark
Death with Dignity Act was borne from g
her husband Frank Robert's struggle as a
state legislator to give terminally ill ?
PHOTO BY JOE GLODE
Oregonian’s the power to choose to end
their life on their own terms. He died of
cancer m 1993, before the Death with
Dignity Act was passed by Oregon voters
• in November 1994.
After leaving the governor’s office,
Roberts served as the director of the
state and local government executive '
programs at Harvard University’s
Kennedy School of Government, and as a
senior fellow at the Harvard Women and
Public Policy Program. She later served
as the associate director of leadership
। with the Portland State University’s
Hatfield School of Government, before
Retiring in 2005.
On Dec. 7, Roberts will celebrate her
80th birthday m â benefit for
Compassion and Choices, the nation’s
largest nonprofit focusing on end-of-life
consultation and education. Tickets are
available through Eventbrite.com.
“I have never been intimidated by
adversity and I have never backed away
from a challenge,” site said on the night
to oppose it They’ve opposed it in every
state where it’s been actively supported.
They prevented it from getting through the
Vermont Legislature for about 10 years.
They were the chief opponent every place
it’s on the ballot,
and certainly we
found that in
California for a
"He knew it wouldn't serve
number of years.
J.Z.: The opposition spent
him," Roberts said of her hus­ We know that’s
$2.5 million against the
band Frank, "that he wouldn't where the major
Colorado initiative,
live long enough for that to be opposition is
although it passed by 65
coming.
percent of the vote. Who is
useful for him. But he wanted
It is also that
the opposition against Death it so much for others, and the
church that has
with Dignity?
more he endured at the end of
raised the
life, the more he wanted this
question about
B.C.L.: Pretty much all
for others."
the Death with
of the money came from
Dignity law
the Catholic dioceses. I
harming people
think $1.6 million came
with disabilities.
from the Diocese of
They raise it as if we’re going to try to
Denver, and there are two other dioceses in
exterminate everyone who has a disability.
Colorado that rounded it out There was
Well, I have a son who is autistic who,
about $50,000 from Colorado Christian
believe me, I would not support anything
University, but the vast majority came from
that did that It is a fallacy. No one in
Catholic dioceses.
Oregon with a pre-existing disability has
used the law in all the years we’ve had it. It
B.R.: They say Death with Dignity is a
is not accurate, it is not honest, and it is a
suicide and it’s a sin, and they will continue
would ask me every few days, “How’s our
bill going? How’s the signing going?” He
knew it wouldn’t serve him, that he wouldn’t
live long enough for that to be useful for
him. But he wanted it so much for others,
and the more he endured
at the end of life, the more
he wanted this for others.
Barbara Roberts: It’s very
disappointing to me. I know what it
means to be the first woman holding a
major office as thé first woman governor
of this state. I’m very excited about our
second woman governor being elected by
such great numbers on Tuesday, and
then to watch the surprising and
disappointing outcome on the presidents'
race ~ it will take a while to recover from
■at
But the truth is we can’t just stand
back and whine. It doesn’t solve anything.
We have to move forward, we have to
■ worktogether, andthere. are millions of.
young women - and thousands in this
state - who worked on this campaign and
got so involved. What we need to do is
take that energy and intelligence and that
passion and put it in to some other useful
ways that those women can contribute. ;
many of Lho.->e young women we can gel
involved.
It's not just young women, it's young
men, too. We want to encourage those
/ young people who care that much and
find a way to involve them in our culture
in useful ways and productive ways and
positive ways. We don't want them to be
just turned off and go away.
See ELECTION, page 7
very cruel way to raise their opposition, but
every time it comes up, that follows.
J.Z.: I read that the top reason people choose
that is the loss of autonomy.
B.C.L.: People want to retain autonomy,
but that desire is not in a vacuum. Why do
they want to retain autonomy in this
situation? Because they don’t want to
endure unbearable suffering. I think people
understand, maybe those people who have
watched other people die, that pain can be
controlled when they make a request;
they’re not in pain. They might anticipate
enormous pain. But they also understand
what it might take to control pain; it might
take medication that is so strong, that it
makes you delirious. Or that is so strong
that you have to be essentially sedated to
unconsciousness. So when we say autonomy,
I think that’s what they’re anticipating.
They’re anticipating losing their entire self
for an unknown period of time, because
what it would take to manage their
symptoms would reduce them to total
unconsciousness or delirium or stupor.
B.R.: When you’re knocked out that like
See ROBERTS, page 7