The citizen-initiated referendum is a device that should be used with great care, a tool to be employed only when lawmakers consistently fail to give a matter of importance the consideration it deserves. Death with dignity — physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill — is such a matter.

PRO 916, a group which takes its name from a bill introduced last session by Winterport Rep. Joseph Brooks and summarily dismissed by both the House and Senate, announced this week it will begin gathering petition signatures at the polls in November in hopes of forcing a plebicite in 1999 or 2000. The petition campaign will be but the first step on a long, arduous journey, but it is one that should be taken.

Since 1990, the legislature has had four opportunities to debate thoughtfully the end of life when medical miracles run out. Four times, it has ducked the issue. Some legislators no doubt have deep religious or ethical concerns; many likely simply don’t want to make the tough, potentially politically damaging decision to allow a terminally ill, pain-ridden person make the toughest decision imaginable.

Maine people have not ducked the issue. A highly regarded opinion poll released in January, just before L.D. 916 was soundly defeated in both chambers, showed that nearly 71 percent of Mainers would cherish the opportunity to chose a quick, painless death if lingering, debilitating agony were the only other option. No doubt many of those Mainers, like Rep. Brooks, have watched a loved one waste away, a loved one who craves a peaceful end that takes far too long to come.

Brook’s bill, the bill PRO 916 would put before the public, has nothing to do with state-sanctioned euthanasia, nothing to do with permitting a family, or society, to rid itself of a burden. The bill is about allowing people in pain and with no hope of recovery to make a choice, and the protections built in are considerable: The patient must voluntarily seek and obtain the opinions of two physicians that he or she is terminally ill and is likely to die within six months; the patient must agree to be tested and certified as mentally competent and not suffering from depression; a 15-day waiting period must pass before a physician can provide the patient with a lethal dose of pharmaceutical drugs.

And for those interested in making up their own minds about their own lives, it should be noted that the last legislature even rejected Brook’s last-minute amendment to send L.D. 916 to citizen referendum.

If nothing else, the coming debate — sure to be intense, emotional and, unfotunately, highly divisive — will bring to the fore such issues as the effectiveness of pain management, Maine’s low support for hospice services and other deficiencies in end-of-life care. Each an important matter — almost as important as allowing competent people to make rational decisions about life and inevitable death.