Ethical Issues
Ms. Portman
At present (January 2000) only the state of Oregon has a statute
permitting doctor-assisted/physician-assisted suicide (DAS/PAS)
and then only within very narrowly prescribed circumstances, i.e.,
for a terminally ill patient. In the November 1998 elections,
voters in Michigan defeated a ballot measure to legalize doctor-assisted
suicide. Earlier in the last decade, voters in California and
Washington state defeated similar ballot measures. Maine in
1998 defeated a statute legalizing DAS/PAS in the State House.
Such measures although often introduced normally die within
committee
hearings and seldom reach the floor of the full legislative body.
An example of such proposed legislation is California AB1592
THE DEATH WITH DIGNITY ACT proposed early in 1999 presented here
in an analysis form.
In the remainder of the states, DAS/PAS is subsumed under assisted suicide. Thirty-nine states have a statute prohibiting assisted suicide. Six states Alabama, Idaho, Massachusetts, Nevada, Vermont, and West Virginia prohibit assisted suicide through application of common law. In the spring 1999 Maryland was the latest state by statute to outlaw assisted suicide. Four states North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, and Wyoming have neither a statute nor common law which prohibits assisted suicide.
If the Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999, passed by the House, received in the Senate on November 19 and referred to the Committee on Judiciary, becomes the law of the land, the legal and political landscape surrounding doctor assisted suicide will once again be markedly altered.