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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2015
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His bill goes
further than
Oregon’s law
By IVAN MORENO
Associated Press
DENVER — Lance Wright
is a meticulous planner: He has
a line ready for when his hands
shake during work presenta-
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days, an audacious plan to let
people with incurable illnesses
choose when they die.
The 63-year-old energy ef-
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son’s disease patient is trying
to do what many better-funded
and organized activists cannot:
Get language on next year’s
Colorado ballot that would
give him and others the right to
seek assistance from doctors to
die — and then convince voters
to approve it as a constitutional
amendment.
Wright has long support-
ed the idea that people should
have the right to end their own
lives, closely following the
1994 Oregon debate that led to
the nation’s initial right-to-die
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appeared 12 years ago, his in-
terest became personal.
“A battleship off the coast
will focus your attention,” he
said.
Wright’s proposal goes fur-
ther than what lawmakers and
advocates of the “right-to-die”
movement want because a pa-
tient doesn’t have to be months
away from dying, and pa-
tients don’t have to administer
life-ending drugs on their own.
So there’s already opposition
to Wright’s effort, and since
he has no organization to help
with the time and money need-
ed for the expensive task of sig-
nature-gathering, he is taking a
major political long shot. But
he’s used to long shots.
He unsuccessfully ran as a
Democrat against former Re-
publican U.S. Rep. Tom Tan-
credo when that suburban Den-
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2002. Last year, he collected 22
David Zalubowski/AP Photo
Lance Wright, who is suffering with Parkinson’s disease, talks about a proposal that he is advancing to allow him and other terminally ill patients to
have the right to seek assistance from a third party when they want to die in Colorado. Wright wants Colorado voters to decide next year whether
terminally ill people should be allowed to end their own lives with medical help.
votes as a write-in candidate for
a Denver statehouse district.
Wright has more at stake in
this campaign.
“I feel that it’s a basic hu-
man right to be in charge of
your own destiny, if you will.
The situation now is that you
and I are not in control of
what happens at the end of our
lives,” said Wright, who served
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Council from 1996 to 2000.
At the moment, the disease
is more of an inconvenience
for Wright. During presenta-
tions, he quips that his shaking
hands don’t mean he’s nervous,
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general, he’s still healthy and
able-bodied. He walks his wife
home and carries her books
from the University of Denver,
where she’s a law professor.
“I love life. I want to live
every minute that I can,”
Wright said. But he knows the
time may come when he will
be unable to walk on his own
or swallow food.
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who would qualify as having an
incurable condition to get aid in
dying from a doctor. He said it
would not apply to people who
are depressed or suicidal.
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it complies with standards for
a ballot measure, he’ll need
to start collecting more than
98,000 signatures from regis-
tered voters by next summer.
He’ll have to do that with-
out the support of Compas-
sion and Choices, a national
group advocating for right-to-
die laws. The group opposes
Wright’s plan because doctors
can inject patients with the fa-
tal drugs.
“We just think that it’s a lit-
tle bit too dangerous, quite hon-
estly,” said Roland Halpern, a
Denver-based spokesman for
the group, which wants laws
requiring patients to take the
drugs on their own to ensure it
is what they want.
State lawmakers pursuing
the idea do not back Wright’s
plan, either, largely because
the ballot language does not in-
clude the “terminally ill.”
“I don’t think (the propos-
al) uses the word ‘euthanasia,’
but it seems to provide for eu-
thanasia, which we do not ad-
vocate,” said Democratic Rep.
Lois Court of Denver, who is
sponsoring end-of-life legisla-
tion specifying that a patient be
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formally requested life-end-
ing drugs several times, and
self-administer those drugs,
among other conditions.
Wright argues some like
him may not be able to take
that medication on their own.
And people in similar circum-
stance may not qualify for what
lawmakers are proposing. An
Alzheimer’s patient may lose
the ability to take care of him-
self but still not be considered
terminal, for example.
Halpern’s group has sup-
ported attempts to pass right-
to-die bills in other states,
including California, where
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a
measure into law in October.
Other states where doctors can
prescribe life-ending drugs for
the terminally ill are Oregon,
Washington, Vermont and
Montana.
If Wright succeeds in get-
ting to the ballot, he’d face op-
position from religious organi-
zations and conservatives who
view the laws in Oregon and
other states as facilitating sui-
cide. Some doctors have also
expressed concern that mak-
ing life-ending drugs available
to patients takes away hope of
recovery when a terminal diag-
nosis can turn out to be wrong.
Wright said he’s optimis-
tic his idea will draw support.
He insists the issue is not just
about what he’s going through.
He said he’s “determined to
make sure that I’ve done every-
thing that I can to provide the
sort of framework for individ-
ual liberty that I can for folks
here in Colorado.”
Foss: He has coached more than 60 different teams in Astoria, Vernonia
“Twenty-seven years in
golf (Vernonia and Astoria),
“This is my 30th year of 16 as a head volleyball coach
teaching industrial arts,” he (both schools); club volley-
said. “Thirty years in the ball for eight to 10 years; and
3(56 V\VWHP DQG , FRXOG I’ve coached boys’ volleyball
technically retire in the mid- and girls soccer … it’s a lot
dle of next year, because of teams.
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“I have a bunch of old
six months after you start.”
three-ring binders in the
But, “right now my heart basement to prove that,” he
is still here (at Astoria High ODXJKHG ³7KH ¿OH FDELQHWV
School),” said Foss, who are full of old coaching play-
doesn’t know when he will books, diagrams and plays.”
retire from teaching. “It de-
So don’t expect Dan
pends on what my heart says. Foss to just step away from
When it’s time, it’s time.”
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As for coaching athlet- still burns for the guy who
ics, “Twenty-seven years once got to carry the Olym-
of coaching golf has been a pic Torch, when it passed
great run,” he said. “I came through Salem on its way to
back after a couple years’ the 1996 Summer Olympics
EUHDNEXW,¿JXUHULJKWQRZ in Atlanta.
is a good time. I don’t see
“I’m competitive,” said
coming back and doing any Foss, who admits, “I’ve
coaching in the near future.” slammed a few clipboards
By his count, Foss has down on the bench a few
coached more than 60 different times.”
teams in his years at Vernonia
He added, “I love all
and Astoria High Schools, and sports. Volleyball is the most
as a club volleyball coach.
rewarding for the kids. When
Continued from Page 1A
they work so hard and ac-
complish what they do as a
team. When they form on the
court as a unit, it’s awesome.
I have great memories from
both volleyball and golf.”
Golf “is more mental, and
it’s more individual, with
more preparation prior to the
matches.”
Serving as the public ad-
dress announcer for sporting
events, Foss says, keeps him
close to sports, without the
stress.
Chris Hunt and Lou Mar-
coneri also share some of the
announcing duties.
“I’ve enjoyed staying in-
volved with the volleyball
program through announc-
ing,” he said. “It’s an honor
to be asked. I enjoy it. With
the atmosphere — and I tend
to amplify — it works out
pretty good.”
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lot of volleyball slang for
the fans, who tend to enjoy
the matches a little bit more.
Such as “Black & Deck-
er” for a kill off the block
and “cross-court crunch,” to
name a couple.
“There’s some fun ones
in there,” Foss said. “Those
sayings I have to give credit
to the USA Men’s Nation-
al team. I picked those up
in 1988, from all the differ-
ent slang terms they had. I
just adopted some of those
terms.”
The Lady Fishermen also
“have fun with the music,” he
said. “That’s not my credit.
The girls prepare the warm-up
CD. They time it perfectly so
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that when the general warm-
ups are done, it kicks right
over to the slow, subdued mu-
sic (usually the theme from
‘Titanic’) when the other team
begins hitting drills.
“Then we pick up the
pace,” when Astoria starts
hitting.
And then there’s golf,
which Foss hopes to play a
little more of once retirement
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“I hope to do more golf
tours,” he said. “With me not
coaching this spring, I will be
able to start my preparation
a lot earlier than May. I look
forward to cranking it up
and hope for the best. I’m 52
now, but still hitting the ball
just as far as I did in college,
and a little farther.”
— Gary Henley