![]() Three states-North Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming have neither criminalized nor legalized physician-assisted suicide. Forty of them (most recently Ohio in November 2002) have passed statutes that prohibit the practice, and 6 prohibit it by common law. On the Maine referendum ballot in 2002, the question asked succinctly and in plain English: "Should a terminally ill adult who is of sound mind be allowed to ask for and receive a doctor's help to die?" Maine voters said "no" (meekly) by a vote of 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent.įorty-six states stand opposed to Oregon, formally criminalizing P-AS. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Oregon offered the question to voters again, in November 1997, this time receiving a 60 percent majority in favor of legalizing the practice.įour states besides Oregon-Michigan, Washington, California, and Maine-have asked voters about P-AS, and voters in all 4 have turned it down. Three years prior to the high court's decision, Oregon voters had approved a referendum legalizing P-AS by a slim margin of 51 percent. ![]() It declared, rather, that legalizing or criminalizing physician-assisted suicide (P-AS) was a matter of states' rights that is, a matter for each state to decide for itself. That ruling, however, did not make physician-assisted suicide a crime throughout the land. The question before the court was specific: Are state laws that criminalize physician-assisted suicide unconstitutional? The high court ruled that such laws were not unconstitutional. The 1997 US Supreme Court ruling regarding physician-assisted suicide is often misrepresented or misunderstood. ![]()
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