In the Saturday Oregonian (Nov. 11), there were two articles that caught my attention. On the front page it was about Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, in which semantics was the main focus ("Death act's alias has state tongue-tied"). Should it be given a name that softens its true meaning and intent? Or should it be called what it is -- "physician-assisted suicide"? Strong convictions remain on both sides of the ethics issue.

On the front of the Living section was an article about the challenges, risks and rewards of climbing Mount Everest. I would not for a minute question the right of anyone to engage in a dangerous, life-threatening, possibly suicidal undertaking, even if just for thrills, fame or money.

But if people who are healthy, usually young and often responsible for families are given this autonomy over their own lives, why shouldn't the same right be given to those who are suffering and without hope?

Queen Victoria was one of the first women to receive anesthesia during childbirth. She thought it was marvelous, but her subjects were appalled. After all, women were supposed to suffer in childbirth. Attitudes do evolve.

Hopefully the right to "die with dignity" will sooner, not later, be accepted as a humane choice.

BARBARA TYLER, Tigard

My 23-year-old, physically healthy, mentally ill sister committed suicide. Oregonians dying with the benefit of our Death With Dignity Act are mentally healthy and terminally ill. They are choosing to hasten their own deaths for reasons important to them.

I believe they should have this choice, and I prefer to describe what they are doing as "physician assisted hastening of death."

PETER VENNEWITZ, Northwest Portland

"What's in a name?," philosopher Patricia Backlar asks in "Death act's alias has state tongue-tied." Backlar correctly asserts that, "The terms have political implications." What she fails to note is that the terms also have personal implications.

The Department of Human Services' decision to stop applying the term "physician-assisted suicide" to the actions of people who use the Death With Dignity Act is a sign of respect -- respect for people like my mother.

Terminal lung cancer led her to access the law, but it did not take away her will to live. Hospitalizations, chemotherapy and radiation treatments did not stop her from engaging in her hobbies and in the lives of her children and grandchildren.

When she no longer had control of her bodily functions and tumors in her airways left her breathless and coughing up blood, she chose her time. Surrounded by her loved ones, she drank the medication and died peacefully.

I knew that her final act of dignity and control was not "suicide," but rather a peaceful and loving act that validated the personal freedom she held so dear.

JULIE McMURCHIE, Southeast Portland

Why not call it the "End of Life Assistance Act"? This seems to be more neutral than the others. I personally do not have a problem with what we have been calling it, because that is what it is, but I can see where patients and physicians could take offense.

LINDA AKINS, Tigard

Oregon officials do not have to be "tongue-tied" regarding the Death With Dignity Act. The death we think is a termination of life forever is probably not [the end], but it's an end-of-this-life-mission accomplishment. There is a life after death, according to the book by Dr. Deepak Chopra that I received as a birthday gift ("Life After Death: The Burden of Proof").

With the end of life, man completes his mission or a dream that has matured and falls like a spectacularly colored leaf to be born again as a green bud in the next spring.

So we could have a better name for the "death with dignity" law as an "Act of Life Mission Accomplished."

SHANTU SHAH, Southwest Portland

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