When he was in his early 70s, my father was diagnosed with cancer.

It was small cell lung cancer. It is very deadly.

When he called me that Saturday morning to tell me the news, he added that his physician told him that without treatment, death was certain. With chemotherapy and radiation he might have a 1 percent chance of living.

I talked him into chemo and radiation treatments.

The treatments made him sick, he lost his hair and the cancer continued to spread throughout his body.

Three months later, he was dead.

Ever since, I’ve regretted talking him into a situation that only ended his days in more pain and discomfort.

Now, with Initiative 1000 on the ballot – it’s the physician-assisted suicide measure – would I do something different if it were the law of the state at the time?

Yes – and no.

Given the odds of survival, I don’t think I would have pushed my father to undergo treatment that did nothing but make his final days worse. But I would not have wanted him to commit suicide – and I would have not wanted anyone assisting him, even a physician.

Not surprisingly, I’m against I-1000.

There’s no sugar-coating I-1000. It says it’s OK to kill someone.

Yes, I know the physician doesn’t force the deadly pills down the patient’s throat. But the physician does provide the prescription for the lethal dose.

Death will come to all of us. If healing no longer is possible, our choice should be to comfort the person and help them through their last days.

If a sick person truly wishes to die on his or her own terms, and reaches this conclusion in a competent manner, then that person will find a way. Hospitals honor “do not resuscitate” requests from patients. Also, dying people can choose to withdraw feeding tubes or other life-support systems. Nature, then, takes it course.

That’s far different than I-1000. With it, there is active involvement in the killing of the patient.

Our goal should be to support life, not destroy it. All of us, the living and the dying, should embrace that.