Interview With State Senator Mike Padden on TVW, Thursday 10/04/24 at 7 pm

Senator Padden:

As mentioned in my most recent e-newsletter, I sat down for a “farewell interview” with Austin Jenkins, the host of TVW’s "Inside Olympia" show. 

The interview focused on my 28-year career in the Legislature and some of the key issues I focused on during my years in the House and Senate. The interview will be shown for the first time on TVW this Thursday (October 3) at 7 p.m. 

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For a short summary of Senator Padden 's life and career, please see below.

My Personal Experience With Assisted Suicide

By Margaret Dore

In another life, most likely in 1980 when I was 23 years old, I talked three young men down from suicide.

What I think happened is that a final exit network type person had given them my phone number by mistake. This was before the age of caller ID.

I was contacted by each of the three young men over a period of time, each one wanting assistance to kill himself. 

I called a suicide prevention person to ask what I should do, i.e., with regard to the first one. The person told me to ask the suicidal person why? To engage him.  

My Mum Didn't Die

Good morning. I’m Anita Cameron, Director of Minority Outreach for Not Dead Yet, a national, grassroots disability organization opposed to medical discrimination, healthcare rationing, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide laws are dangerous because though these laws are supposed to be for people with six months or less to live, doctors are often wrong about a terminal diagnosis. In 2009, while living in Washington state, my mother was determined to be at the end stage of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I was told her death was imminent, that if I wanted to see her alive, I should get there in two days. She rallied, but was still quite ill, so she was placed in hospice. Her doctor said that her body had begun the process of dying.

Though she survived 6 months of hospice, her doctor convinced her that her body was still in the process of dying, and she moved home to Colorado to die.

My mum didn’t die. In fact, six weeks after returning to Colorado, she and I were arrested together in Washington, DC, fighting for disability justice. She became active in her community and lived almost 12 years!

Seattle Mother Who Died from Blood Clots got J&J Vaccine to be Child's 'Room Mom'

SEATTLE (KOMO) — A King County woman has died from a blood clot after she got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The Washington State Department of Health (WSDH) confirmed she is the first blood clot death in the state after getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“Sadly, this is the first such death in Washington State,’ Secretary of Health Umair A. Shah said. “We send our deepest condolences to her family and loved ones. Losing a loved one at any time is a tragic and difficult and pain that’s become all too familiar in the last year and a half of this pandemic.”

Jessica Berg Wilson, 37, received the J & J vaccine on Aug. 26 and died Sept. 7, according to her family.