Physician-assisted suicide is illegal by specific law or legal precedent in most states. Many state legislatures have tackled this issue in recent years, with more than 25 rejecting bills to legalize physician-assisted suicide and nearly a dozen states adopting new laws to ban it. No state legislature has voted to legalize this practice. Oregon voters approved a ballot initiative to legalize physician-assisted suicide in 1994 and reaffirmed the vote in 1997, making Oregon the first government in the world make the practice legal. Physician-assisted suicide supporters in Arizona are rumored to be considering an attempt to legalize it by ballot initiative in 2002.
Federal appeals judge embraces liberalism in conservative times.
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