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Court and the End of Life - State Legislatures Reject Physician-assisted Suicide

U.S. Supreme Court justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter issued opinions encouraging individual states to enact legislation to permit physician-assisted suicide in selected cases. At the state level, more than 30 bills to legalize physician-assisted suicide have been introduced. As of May 2004, Oregon remains the only state with a law that legalizes the practice. The Oregon legislation was approved in 1994 and reaffirmed by voters in 1997.

Five state ballot initiatives failed to garner enough votes to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Voters in California in 1988 and again in 1992 rejected the initiative along with Washington State in 1991, Michigan in 1998, Maine in 2000, and Wyoming in 2004. In addition, an assisted suicide proposal was shelved in the Hawaii legislature in 2004.

[back] Court and the End of Life - The Constitutionality Of Assisted Suicide

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