The following article is from the SAVES newsletter, The
VE Bulletin, Vol 15 No 1, Mar 98
The Status of Assisted Suicide Legislation
in the USA by State
Physician-assisted suicide legislation similar to that in Oregon is currently
being debated in the Maine parliament. Subject to enough signatures being
obtained on a petition intitiated by the influential lobby group Merian's
Friends, a citizens initiated referendum on the issue will be held in Michigan
this year. It may take a long time, but the move for the other states to
follow Oregon's lead appears to be well established.
The following timely summary of the status of current state legislation
was provided by Associated Press on 5 January 1998.
Physician-assisted suicide is legal in only one state, Oregon. Thirty-five
states explicitly make assisted suicide a crime, nine criminalise it through
common law, and three have no stated policy, having neither specific statutes
nor the common law of crimes.
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States where assisted suicide is a crime by statute:
Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware,
Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin.
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States where common law forbids assisted suicide:
Alabama, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, South
Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia.
-
States that have neither common law nor statute law criminalising assisted
suicide:
North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming.
Additionally, Virginia, while having no clear case law on assisted suicide
nor any statute criminalising the act, does have a state statute that imposes
civil sanctions on persons assisting in a suicide.
And the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in October 1996 that assisted suicide
is not a crime.
[Source: National Conference of State Legislatures (November 1997)]
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