Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) -- Oregon assisted suicide advocates have donated $200,000 to expand the state's first-in-the-nation law to their northern neighbors. Euthanasia advocates in Washington have to meet a July 4 deadline for having signatures submitted to the state to qualify the assisted suicide measure for the November ballot.

The organization, headed by former Gov. Booth Gardner, must submit 224,880 signatures to qualify the measure. bio2331.html

According to papers form the Washington government, the Oregon Death with Dignity Political Action Committee made the huge donation in late November.

That came just after the group promoting the assisted suicide measure in Washington formed its political action committee.

Wesley J. Smith, a noted author and attorney who is one of the leading bioethics watchdogs, had some harsh words for the Oregon activists.

"If anyone thought that the international death with dignity crowd would allow Washington voters to decide for themselves whether to legalize assisted suicide, they were living in a fantasy world," he said. "They want this election and they want it bad."

Smith predicted the mainstream media wouldn't likely cover the donation or discuss the importance of it.

"Will the media, which are so often exorcised about the influence of money in political campaigns make a stink about this? Not on your life," Smith explained.

"Self-righteous condemnation of big money in campaigns is expressed only when the money is donated for causes with which journalists disagree," he added.

Smith said the huge donation reminds him of Missouri and Amendment 2 and Proposition 71 in California.

"Huge bucks from special interests were poured into those campaigns with nary a peep from an outraged media," he said.

Under the assisted suicide measure, Washington residents who have less than six months to live would be able to ask a doctor for a prescription for lethal drugs to kill themselves.