This morning, former Gov. Booth Gardner is slated to file a "Washington Death With Dignity Initiative" patterned on Oregon's decade-old assisted-suicide program. Gardner is struggling with Parkinson's disease.

If proponents gather enough signatures and voters approve the measure on the November ballot, mentally competent adults diagnosed as terminally ill with 6 months or less to live could give themselves life-ending medication.

I'll have more on this tomorrow, when Gardner and proponents speak at the filing. But the Everett Herald's Jerry Cornfield asked Gov. Chris Gregoire what she thought of the proposal at a legislative forum today.

She paused before responding, then said:

"I love my friend Booth Gardner, and my heart goes out to his condition and what he's had to face," she said. "He was my motivation for (establishing) the Life Science Discovery Fund. I pray every day that we'll find a cure, but I find it on a personal level, very, very difficult to support assisted suicide."

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