Team+Explosion

Blake Heffner Richard, Worsnop. "Assisted Suicide." //CQ Researcher// 21 Fedbuary 1992: n. pag. Web. 25 May 2010. .**
 * __Euthanasia__**
 * Richard, Worsnop. "Assisted Suicide Controversy." //CQ Researcher// 5 May 1995: n. pag. Web. 25 May 2010. .
 * 1) patients trying to persuade doctors to help end their own lives
 * 2) "In the 1970s, Americans began demanding “death with dignity” -- the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment in the event of terminal illness or injury."
 * 3) Fifty-eight percent of those responding to a January 1991 Gallup Poll said a person has “the moral right” to end his or her life when the person “has a disease that is incurable.”
 * 4) 65 percent said yes to this question: “When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient's life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it?”
 * 5) Although taking one's life is no crime, helping someone else commit suicide often is.
 * 6) Some right-to-die proponents are working to eliminate criminal sanctions against assisted suicide
 * 7) With active euthanasia, it is the doctor who administers the lethal drug dose
 * 8) As awareness of “aid in dying” spreads, the concept is emerging as a political issue.
 * 9) More than 30 states have made assisted suicide a criminal offense
 * 10) a federal district judge in Seattle declared the state's law against physician-assisted suicide to be unconstitutional
 * 11) Derek Humphry, executive director of the  Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization and co-founder of the Hemlock Society, which promotes voluntary  euthanasia for the terminally ill, predicts the issue will be back in the Supreme Court, possibly by the end of this year
 * 12) The controversy over aid-in-dying, a term favored by proponents, actually involves not a single practice, but at least three: (1) forgoing or ceasing artificial life support in cases of terminal illness; (2) providing a terminally ill person with the means to end his or her life after the person has requested such help; and (3) actively causing a terminally ill person's death, most commonly by injection of lethal drugs or asphyxiation
 * 13) Opinion polls indicate that Americans are closely divided over laws allowing terminally ill patients to end their lives with a physician's help
 * 14) Support tends to rise when euphemisms like “dignified death” are used and to fall when more graphic terms like “lethal injection” are substituted, in terms of polling
 * 15) The Roman Catholic Church restated its longstanding opposition to aid-in-dying in a papal encyclical letter on human life issues made public March 30.
 * 16) The document reaffirmed traditional Vatican policy on deliberate termination of life, whether by abortion or assisted suicide. Vatican teachings on these issues also find broad support among conservative U.S. Protestants
 * 17) Opponents of aid-in-dying often argue that support for the practice is driven primarily by fear of dying alone and in intractable pain
 * 18) That support would plunge, opponents say, if home-based hospice care of the terminally ill became more widely available and if medical and nursing schools did a better job of instructing their students in effective pain control. Hospice care and improved pain management are touted as being not only humane but also cost-effective, since they reduce the amount of time spent in hospitals.
 * 19) “I have always argued for more and better hospices, more and better pain management,” Derek Humphry says. “I want as little  euthanasia as possible. But . . . there will always be some cases, perhaps 10 percent of [terminal] cases, where the doctor at a certain point just runs out of things to do.”
 * 20) Karen Orloff Kaplan, executive director of Choice in Dying, a New York-based group concerned with the rights of the dying and the terminally ill, thinks supporters and opponents of assisted suicide both would benefit from “unimpassioned debate” on the issue
 * 21) The question of whether individuals have a legal right to die at a time of their own choosing elicits sharply conflicting responses from attorneys and health-care professionals. One school of thought holds that since no state outlaws suicide, helping someone else die should enjoy the same penalty-free status.
 * 22) Bruce Fein, a Washington attorney who held federal posts during the Reagan administration, supports this view. “The lodestar of enlightened criminal prohibitions is morality,” he wrote last year, “and to attach moral censure to assisting conduct - that is, suicide - that itself invites no reproach seems utterly obtuse. It is akin to holding an aider or abettor more culpable than the principal.”
 * 23) Fein cautioned, however, that society does have “a compelling interest in ensuring that suicides, because of their irrevocability, are fully informed and uncoerced.” Consequently, he said persons who assist a suicide “should be prohibited from profiting by the death through inheritance, donated organs, medical research opportunities and otherwise.”
 * 24) As further safeguards, Fein would ban solicitation of suicide and require that suicide decisions be preserved in writing or on tape. At least two neutral observers should witness such decisions and submit affidavits affirming that the decisions were voluntary, he said. “A reasonable waiting period before assisting in the execution of a suicide - perhaps 30 days - should be mandatory so as to permit the decision to be revoked,” Fein added.
 * 25) Some proponents of aid-in-dying contend it would be unfair to permit physician-aided suicide, in which the terminally ill patient is given the drugs with which to kill himself
 * 26) Another rationale for legalizing physician-assisted suicide draws sustenance from a quartet of Supreme Court decisions that seemed to establish a wide-ranging constitutional “right to privacy.” --The rulings came in the cases of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
 * 27) U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein cited Griswold, Casey and Roe in a May 1994 decision striking down Washington state's ban on physician-aided suicide as unconstitutional
 * 28) The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, reversed Rothstein's decision on March 9. The right to privacy may encompass freedom from unwanted medical intervention, the federal appeals court ruled, but not “the right to have a second person collaborate in your death.”
 * 29) some experts contend that laws prohibiting assisted suicide can lead to abuses.
 * 30) Believers in the slippery-slope theory perceive a danger that legalized assisted suicide or active euthanasia would soon become a tool for reining in health-care costs.

[|http://www.euthanasia.com]
 * Rita, Marker, and Hamlon Kathi. "Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Frequently Asked Questions." //International Task force// n. pag. Web. 25 May 2010. .**
 * 1) euthanasia is legal in Oregon, Washington, Montana, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg
 * 2) Euthanasia activists exploit the natural fear people have of suffering and dying. They often claim that, without euthanasia or assisted suicide, people will be forced to endure unbearable pain
 * 3) Right-to-die leaders have attempted for a long time to make it seem that anyone against euthanasia or assisted suicide is trying to impose his or her religion on others. But that's not the case.
 * 4) the government should not have the right to give one group of people (e.g. doctors) the power to kill another group of people (e.g. their patients). but the government also doesn't have the right to make people suffer
 * 5) suicide and/or assisted suicide is not criminalized
 * 6) Oregon and Washington passed laws and Montana's Supreme Court determined that assisted suicide is a medical treatment
 * 7) The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg permit both euthanasia and assisted suicide. Although euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in Switzerland, assisted suicide is penalized only if it is carried out "from selfish motives."
 * 8) In 1995 Australia's Northern Territory approved a euthanasia bill
 * 9) It went into effect in 1996 but was overturned by the Australian Parliament in 1997. Also, in 1997, Colombia's Supreme Court ruled that penalties for mercy killing should be removed.
 * 10) A lot of people think that euthanasia or assisted suicide is needed so patients won't be forced to remain alive by being "hooked up" to machines
 * 11) suicide is one of the three leading causes of death among people ages 15-34.
 * 12) euthanasia or assisted suicide be used as a means of health care cost containment
 * 13) Arguing against assisted suicide, acting solicitor general Walter Dellinger said, "The least costly treatment for any illness is lethal medication."
 * 14) In Oregon, some patients have been told by their health insurance provider that a costly drug prescribed by a doctor to treat the patient's illness would not be covered but inexpensive lethal drugs for assisted suicide would be
 * 15) Canadians are faced with such long delays getting treatment in the country's overcrowded health care system that the Canadian government has contracted for Canadians to be treated out of the country.
 * 16) Many British doctors and nurses have concluded that the only way to secure the future of the National Health Service (NHS) is to make more treatments available only to those who can pay privately for them.
 * 17) Oregon's and Washington's assisted-suicide laws do not allow anyone to "coerce" or use "undue influence" to obtain a request for assisted suicide.
 * 18) Legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide only legitimizes the use of plastic bags and toxic gasses to kill vulnerable people.
 * 19) It would also be assisted suicide if a patient pushes a switch to trigger a fatal injection after the doctor has inserted an intravenous needle into the patient's vein.
 * 20) Suicide is an all too common tragic, individual act.
 * 21) in 1999, the Surgeon General of the United States launched a campaign to reduce the rate of suicide
 * 22) In 1989, a group of physicians published a report in the //New England Journal of Medicine// in which they concluded that it would be morally acceptable for doctors to give patients suicide information and a prescription for deadly drugs so they can kill themselves.
 * 23) There are many definitions for the word "terminal." For example, Jack Kevorkian who participated in the deaths of more than 130 people before he was convicted of murder said that a terminal illness was "any disease that curtails life even for a day."
 * 24) The use of a six-month prognosis to qualify a patient for assisted suicide or euthanasia was challenged in the World Federation of Right to Die Societies' newsletter
 * 25) A failed proposal in South Australia would have made euthanasia and assisted suicide available to those who are "hopelessly ill." According to the "Dignity in Dying Bill 2001"
 * 26) In Oregon, some patients have been told by their health insurance provider that a costly drug prescribed by a doctor to treat the patient's illness would not be covered but inexpensive lethal drugs for assisted suicide would be.
 * 27) Drugs for assisted suicide cost about $75 to $100, making them far less expensive than providing medical care. This could fill the void from cutbacks for treatment and care with the "treatment" of death.
 * 28) the Oregon Medicaid program pays for assisted suicide for poor residents as a means of "comfort care."
 * 29) The concern about "being a burden" could serve as a powerful force that could influence the decision. The tenth annual report on deaths under the Oregon assisted-suicide law illustrates this. In 45% of the deaths reported during 2007, fear of being a burden was expressed as a reason for requesting assisted suicide.
 * 30) Although euthanasia and assisted suicide remained technically illegal in the Netherlands until 2001, for many years the Royal Dutch Association of Pharmacy has provided prescribing guidelines to prevent problems and to increase the efficiency of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Dallas Darling **Lyall, Sarah. "Guidelines In England for assisted Suicide." //New York Times// 23 September 2003: n. pag. Web. 25 May 2010. .**

1. when the nurse felt quite sure that they wished to be released from the bonds of earth she would give patients the drink 2. Death comes painlessly with drink 3. Afraid that intentions of euthanasia will be misunderstood 4. Some families wondered if the drugs made their loved ones go quicker 5. Most doctors don’t consider themselves “Dr. Death” 6. Carefully select patients 7. Only should be used if patients care is no longer economically viable 8. Some physicians feel pressured to up the medication, but then relatives want it to be over with 9. Some are happy not to see loved ones not suffering anymore 10. Can help let people die comfortably at home 11. United States Supreme Court denied a constitutional right to a physician aid suicide 12. that “a patient who is suffering from a terminal illness and who is experiencing great pain has no legal barriers to obtaining medication, from qualified physicians, to alleviate that suffering, even to the point of causing unconsciousness and hastening death” 13. possible for patients to feel pain while under sedation 14. Some doctors wont have to use euthanasia, they let the body take over and sedate itself 15. Terminal Sedation will lead to death, but isn’t a drug that kills instantly, it takes time 16. “Morphine Drip” may be a code word for slow euthanasia 17. Organs work fine after using euthanasia 18. There are “Guidelines” for helping 19. Used to stop the misery of being in pain 20. If helping can be charged with 14 years in prison 21. If individual wants to die, its ok 22. Incurable disease with use is ok 23. Opinions on who to prosecute or not 24. Want to make informed decisions about a life 25. Society thinks its too big for something like euthanasia 26. Many people are against it 27. In Britain, 16 cases of suspected assisted suicide 28. Also called Mercy killing 29. Considered Murder or Manslaughter 30. Legal in Switzerland

"Always to care, Never to kill." February 1992: n. pag. Web. 25 May 2010. <http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9202/articles/documentation.html 30. Twice an issue in Western Civilization
 * 1) First episode in 1920’s
 * 2) Used on “Unfit” people. Alcoholics, druggies.
 * 3) Said it was for the public good
 * 4) Said could be organized, to help the economy
 * 5) Denied to the old people
 * 6) Hitler said if they were to get rid of the weakest children, they might get stronger
 * 7) Hitler moved cautiously on the situation of Euthanasia
 * 8) Legalization in California would take more time
 * 9) Once was legal in Germany
 * 10) Hitler authorized euthanasian of children
 * 11) During first 6 months of authorization, 5,000 children had been killed
 * 12) A favorite diagnosis was pneumonia for the children
 * 13) Hitler said he wanted “destruction of life unworthy of life.”
 * 14) in one year, 70,000 Jews suffered Mercy Deaths
 * 15) System broke down soon after
 * 16) Some used euthanasia for a responsibility sacrifice
 * 17) When children were killed they said they were “making angels”
 * 18) The handicapped, the chronically ill, received euthanaisian
 * 19) If given permission to die, its up to the persons choice
 * 20) People in the West say they have the “Right to Die”
 * 21) If meets legal proponents, legal to use euthanasiation
 * 22) Killing is never a means of caring
 * 23) Fine line between allowing to die, and killing
 * 24) Always has to wonder if it will benefit the patient
 * 25) Euthanasia is an extension of the license to kill
 * 26) Nursing homes will can provide patients that would “be better off dead”
 * 27) Been taught to always care, never kill
 * 28) Members of the healing profession are forced to kill, and not heal as they were taught too
 * 29) If legalized, treatment can be refused

_ Miyah [|http://www.assistedsuicide.com] 12. The only four places that today //openly// and //legally,// authorize active assistance in dying of patients, are: **Oregon** (since l997, physician-assisted suicide only); **Switzerland** (1941, physician and non-physician assisted suicide only); **Belgium** (2002, permits 'euthanasia' but does not define the method; **Netherlands** (voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide lawful since April 2002 but permitted by the courts since l984). 13. Two doctors must be involved in Oregon, Belgium, and the Netherlands, plus a psychologist if there are doubts about the patient's competency. But that is not stipulated in Switzerland, although at least one doctor usually is because the right-to-die societies insist on medical certification of a hopeless or terminal condition before handing out the lethal drugs 14. Switzerland alone does not bar foreigners, but careful watch is kept that the reasons for assisting are altruistic, as the law requires. In fact, only one of the four groups in that country, DIGNITAS, chooses to assist foreigners 15. When this willingness was published in newspapers worldwide, sick people from all over Europe, and occasionally America, started trekking to Switzerland to get a hastened death. 16. Mentally ill patients don’t always have the choice to die because some illnesses can be treated and or cured. 17. The first signs of organized activity on this issue came in the late 1930s in Britain, but nothing really happened until the l970s when the public – the non-medical world – woke up with a shock to the fact that we often die differently nowadays compared to our ancestors. 18. This revelation – first made famous and characterized by the ‘Karen Ann Quinlan pull-the-plug case in America’ – brought a rush of legislation introducing the so-called “Living Wills” – better known nowadays as Advance Directives, permitting the disconnection – or declining the use of – pointless life support equipment. 19. Switzerland and Oregon only allow assisted suicide and are one of the few places in the world that allow it 20. most ballots initiative have failed because we are not yet carrying n a majority of the medical and nursing professions in favor of doing the procedure 21. there have been multiple movies dealing with assisted suicide 22. Helps only terminally ill people with non curable diseases or suffering from a painful terminal illness 23. In most cases non-doctor assisted suicide is more appropriate 24. Secondly, if we are to eliminate the taboos and fears of abuse that some people have, we must make the subject of hastened death, assisted suicide, voluntary euthanasia 25. Euthanasia is a broad term for “good death” 26. NON-VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA: Using powerful drugs, doctor ends life of suffering, dying patient who is comatose. Illegal, but happens all the time, discree 27. ** TERMINAL SEDATION :** Upon patient request, doctor puts patient into deep sleep with medications, during which time the patient dies either of the underlying illness or starvation/dehydration. Widely practiced and generally accepted as ethical and lawful. mostly, in the interest of compassion 28. **MERCY KILLING:** Taking the life of another person in the belief that this is a compassionate act because the ill person is unable to do so. Unlawful. 29. Controversy in Oregon about the best term to describe how a doctor helps a terminally ill person to die under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (1994) set me thinking about all the terms we use to describe ways of dying and death. 30. Oregon is between people on the ‘choice’ side who abhor words like suicide, euthanasia, and Hemlock, while on the ‘anti-choice’ side they want the foregoing words to be clearly spelled out because, they think, it helps their opposing case. 31. From the act's passage to 2008, 401 patients used the act, representing an estimated 19.4 deaths per 10,000 total deaths in the same time period. The average patient age was 70, with 81.8 percent of patients suffering from malignant neoplasm’s (cancer) All but five of the 401 deaths involved a lethal medication of either secobarbital or pentobarbital of those patients ingesting medicine received under the act, 95.1% experienced no complications.
 * Humphry, Derek. "Assisted Suicide ." N.p., September, 2004. Web. 24 May 2010. . **
 * 1) Just because a country has not defined its criminal code on this specific action does not mean all assisters will go free
 * 2) **Sweden** has no law specifically proscribing assisted suicide. Instead the prosecutors might charge an assister with manslaughter
 * 3) In 1979 the Swedish right-to-die leader Berit Hedeby went to prison for a year for helping a man with MS to die.
 * 4) **Norway** has criminal sanctions against assisted suicide by using the charge "accessory to murder". In cases where consent was given and the reasons compassionate, the courts pass lighter sentences
 * 5) A retired Norwegian physician, Christian Sandsdalen, was found guilty of willful murder in 2000. He admitted giving an overdose of morphine to a woman chronically ill after 20 years with MS who begged for his help
 * 6) If illegal a doctor can loose his medical license
 * 7) Finland has nothing in its criminal code about assisted suicide
 * 8) **Germany** has had no penalty for either suicide or assisted suicide since 1751, although it rarely happens there due to the hangover taboo caused by Nazi mass murders, plus powerful, contemporary, church influences. Direct killing by euthanasia is a crime
 * 9) **France** does not have a specific law banning assisted suicide, but such a case could be prosecuted under 223-6 of the Penal Code for failure to assist a person in danger.
 * 10) **Denmark** has no specific law banning assisted suicide
 * 11) In **Italy** the action is legally forbidden, although pro-euthanasia activists in Turin and Rome are pressing hard for law reform.

1. "In a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that then-U.S. attorney general John D. Ashcroft overstepped his authority in 2001 by trying to use a federal drug law to prosecute doctors who prescribed lethal overdoses under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, the only law in the nation that allows physician-assisted suicide. 2. this measure ahs been approved twice by Oregon voters and upheld by lower court rulings  3. "Every study of physician practice in the United States...shows a measurable, fairly consistent incidence of physician-assisted suicide whether legal or not." 4. "A total of 355 oncologists...were interviewed on euthanasia and PAS [physician-assisted suicide]. On 2 screening questions, 56 oncologists (15.8%) reported participating in euthanasia or PAS." 5. Right to die Pro: terminally ill avoiding a painful life Con: Fundamental liberty is protected by the due process clause 6. Patient Suffering and End-Of-Life Pro: people who wish to can go pain free and live without pain Con: Activists often claim that laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are government mandated suffering 7. Slippery Slope to Legalized Murder Pro: Especially with regard to taking life, slippery slope arguments have long been a feature of the ethical landscape, used to question the moral permissibility of all kinds of acts Con: In debates with those bioethicists and physicians who believe that euthanasia is both deeply compassionate and also a logical way to cut health care costs, I am invariably scorned when I mention 'the slippery slope.' When the states legalize the deliberate ending of certain lives -- I try to tell them -- it will eventually broaden the categories of those who can be put to death with impunity. 8. Hippocratic Oath an Prohibition of Killing Pro: Many opponents of these practices point to the Hippocratic Oath and its prohibition on hastening death. But those who turn to the oath in an effort to shape or legitimize their ethical viewpoints must realize that the statement has been embraced over approximately the past 200 years far more as a symbol of professional cohesion than for its content. Con: In forswearing the giving of poison //when asked for it//, the Hippocratic physician rejects the view that the patient's choice for death can make killing him right. 9. Government Involvement in End- Of-Life Situations Pro: So, for both patients and their loved ones, real decisions are demanded: When do we stop doing all that we can do? When do we withhold which therapies and allow nature to take its course? When are we, through our own indecision and fears of mortality, allowing wondrous medical methods to perversely prolong the dying rather than the living? These intensely personal and socially expensive decisions should not be left to governments, judges or legislators better attuned to highway funding." Con: such as the right to live and the right to due process, and consequently there could very well be a legitimate role for the federal government to play. There's a precedent--as a result of the highly publicized deaths of infants with disabilities in the 1980s, the federal government enacted 'Baby Doe Legislation,' which would withhold federal funds from hospitals that withhold lifesaving treatment from newborns based on the expectation of disability.  10. Palliative (End-Of-Life) Care Pro: "Palliative care has been the main beneficiary of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act [which legalized physician-assisted suicide] so far. Since its passage, we've seen a great resurgence of interest in the medical community in palliative care. Hospice referrals have increased by 20 percent, and now Oregon leads the nation in prescription of morphine. Con: Once a patient has the means to take their own life, there can be decreased incentive to care for the patient's symptoms and needs. 11. Healthcare Spending Implications Pro: Even though the various elements that make up the American healthcare system are becoming more circumspect in ensuring that money is not wasted, the cap that marks a zero-sum healthcare system is largely absent in the United States Con: Cost containment well could become the engine that pulls the legislative train along the track to death on demand 12. Social Groups At Risk Of Abuse Pro: To date, persons who have chosen to use the [Oregon Death with Dignity] law have been well educated, have had excellent health care, have had good insurance, have had access to hospice and have been well supported financially, emotionally and physically." Con: Assisted suicide and euthanasia would carry us into new terrain. American society has never sanctioned assisted suicide or mercy killing. We believe that the practices would be profoundly dangerous for large segments of the population, especially in light of the widespread failure of American medicine to treat pain adequately or to diagnose and treat depression in many cases. 13. Physicians Role as Patients Approach Death Pro: The most plausible party for providing such assistance [in death] is the physician. It is the physician who has access to drugs, who has specialized knowledge of appropriate dosages, and who knows how to prevent side effects such as nausea and vomiting Con: It is understandable, though tragic, that some patients in extreme duress -- such as those suffering from a terminal, painful, debilitating illness -- may come to decide that death is preferable to life. 14. Value of Life as Patients Approach Death Pro: Life itself is commonly taken to be a central good for persons, often valued for its own sake, as well as necessary for pursuit of all other goods within a life Con: The equality-of-human-life ethic requires that each of us be considered of equal inherent moral worth, and it makes the preservation and protection of human life society's first priority. 15.//Palliative care is physical, emotional and spiritual care for a dying person when cure is not possible. It includes compassion and support for family and friends.// 16. //"One last good consequence of legalizing euthanasia is that once death has been accepted, it is often more humane to end life quickly and peacefully,// 17.In ancient Greece and Rome, before the coming of Christianity, attitudes toward infanticide, active euthanasia, and suicide had tended to be tolerant. 18. Many ancient Greeks and Romans had no cogently defined belief in the inherent value of individual human life, and pagan physicians likely performed frequent abortions as well as both voluntary and involuntary mercy killings. 19. There was a remarkable continuity in Church medical ethics regarding suicide and euthanasia between the dawn of Christianity and the late Middle Ages. Medieval references to voluntary death were rare, suggesting that the actual practice of euthanasia had tapered off dramatically since the fall of Rome. 20. Laws in some parts of Europe dictated that a suicide's corpse be dragged through the streets or nailed to a barrel and left to drift downriver. The medieval ethos was distinctly uncongenial to any kind of self-murder." 21. The Hastings Center was founded in 1969 by Daniel Callahan to study ethical problems in medicine and biology and was instrumental in the development of bioethics as a discipline. The original focus of the center concerned death and dying, genetics, reproductive biology and population issues, and behavior control. 22. In the early 1970s, the widely accepted authority of the medical profession came under concerted attack in the name of patient autonomy. This challenge has been embodied in the progressive enumeration of patient rights, especially the right to refuse medical care, even life-sustaining care. 23. 1976, 21-year-old Karen Ann Quinlan had fallen into an irreversible coma at a party in 1974. After doctors declared that she was in a "persistent vegetative state," her parents went to court to have her respirator removed 24. By 1977, eight states -- California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, North Carolina, and Texas -- had signed right-to-die bills into law 25. 1984, The American Medical Association publishes two reports, "Withholding or Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Medical Treatment, and "Withholding or Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Medical Treatment -- Patients' Preferences." The reports detail the American Medical Association's formal position that with informed consent, a physician can withhold or withdraw treatment from a patient who is close to death, and may also discontinue life support of a patient in a permanent coma. 26. By the early 1990s, the growing interest in the right-to-die movement became apparent in public opinion surveys. These showed that more than half of the American public was now in favor of physician-assisted death and membership of the Hemlock Society rose dramatically to reach 50,000... With increased public interest, the stage was set for an explosive swell of activity: in the courts, in professional medical journals and institutions, and, most significantly, in the homes of the American people. 27. 1994, The Oregon Death With Dignity Act is passed, becoming the first law in American history permitting physician-assisted suicide. 28. 2000, Maine introduces a ballot initiative, the Maine Death with Dignity Act, that reads "Should a terminally ill adult, who is of sound mind, be allowed to ask for and receive a doctor's help to die?" The initiative is defeated by a margin of 51% to 49%. 29. 2006, The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion in Gonzales v. Oregon, holds that the Controlled Substances Act does not authorize the Attorney General to ban the use of controlled substances for physician-assisted suicide. Oregon's Death With Dignity Law is upheld. 30. 2009, The Montana Supreme Court affirmed 4-3 in the case of //Baxter v. State of Montana// that physician-assisted suicide is not "against public policy" in Montana. The Court further ruled that state law protects doctors in Montana from prosecution for helping terminally ill patients die. The court declined to rule on the larger question of whether physician-assisted suicide is a right guaranteed under Montana's Constitution
 * ProCon.org Miyah **
 * Gorsuch, Neil. "Euthanasia." ProCon.org, 5/21/2010. Web. 24 May 2010. . Euthanasia.procon.org **

[] (extra source)