Assisted suicide in the United States

In the United States, the term "assisted suicide" is typically used to describe what proponents refer to as "medical aid in dying" (MAID), in which a terminally ill adult is prescribed, and self-administers, barbiturates if they feel that they are suffering significantly.

As of 2025, physician-assisted suicide, or "medical aid in dying", is legal in eleven US jurisdictions: California, Colorado, the District of Columbia,[1] Hawaii, Montana, Maine,[2] New Jersey,[3] New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.

[5] A 2018 poll by Gallup displayed that a majority of Americans, with 72 percent in favor, support laws allowing patients to seek the assistance of a physician in ending their life.

In a 2004 article in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Brown University historian Jacob M. Appel documented extensive political debate over legislation to legalize physician-assisted death in Iowa and Ohio in 1906.

In Ohio, the legislation was inspired by the campaign of heiress Anna Sophina Hall, whose mother had died a long, drawn-out, painful death from liver cancer.

[10][11] Dr. Harold Glucksberg, in 1994, along with four other physicians, three terminally ill patients, and Compassion and Dying, brought a case against the state of Washington for banning assisted suicide.

In 1992, the group Californians Against Human Suffering proposed Proposition 161 to allow patients with less than six months to live the right to receive assistance from physicians in dying.

[32] The bill allows medication to be prescribed by a licensed physician to a patient who is over the age of 18, living with a chronic and life altering condition that is irreversible, and must be of sound mind to make these decisions.

In April 2016, Julie Selsberg and Jaren Ducker filed an initiative with the secretary of state seeking to authorize medical aid in dying in November 2016 through the ballot process.

After the-30 day U.S. Congress review mandated by the federal Home Rule Act, and following the inability of Congressional Republicans to block the bill, the law went into effect on February 18, 2017, with D.C. becoming the seventh jurisdiction in the U.S. to legalize this.

[55] On April 8, 2021, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act into law after the bill passed the New Mexico Legislature, legalizing assisted suicide in the state.

[58] Data from the Oregon Health Authority, which publishes annual reports on the state's first-in-the-nation assisted death law, show that approximately two-thirds of patients who receive prescriptions for lethal drugs take them.

The law states that, in order to participate, a patient must be: 1) 18 years of age or older, 2) a resident of Oregon, 3) capable of making and communicating health care decisions for him/herself, and 4) diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months.

Vermont residents 18 years old or older who are mentally capable adults with a terminal illness and a prognosis of six months or less to live can make an oral request and obtain a lethal dose of medication from a physician to hasten their death.

[28] In 1997, four Washington physicians and three terminally ill patients brought forth a lawsuit that would challenge the ban on medical aid in dying that was in place at the time.

Eventually, the Supreme Court decided, with a unanimous vote, that medical aid in dying was not a protected right under the constitution as of the time of this case.

[61] In 1999, two terminally ill patients, Kevin Sampson and Jane Doe, sued for an order to exempt their physicians from being charged with manslaughter for assisting them in dying.

This court upheld the previous ruling with the reasoning that the Alaska Constitution's right to privacy and liberty does not allow terminally ill patients to be assisted by physicians in dying.

[76] Arizona's state legislature has heard bills to legalize physician assisted suicide and patient-controlled pain medication dosing numerous times since 2003.

The resolution states that the city of Bisbee: Legislation to legalize assisted suicide was first introduced in Connecticut in 1995, when Oregon considered its own policy.

Governor Larry Hogan, whose term in office ended in 2023, has suggested in the past that he would oppose the legislation,[86] but indicated in 2020 that his personal battle with cancer had changed his perspective and that he was now "open to both sides of the issue".

[87] The Massachusetts Death with Dignity Initiative, a ballot measure to legalize aid in dying, was narrowly defeated in the 2012 general election, with 51% of voters against the proposal.

[citation needed] Legislation to legalize physician assisted suicide was introduced numerous times in the Massachusetts House both before and after the ballot initiative, in 1995, 1997, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015.

[89][90] In 1994, a suit was filed in New York claiming that the anti-assisted suicide statute was a violation of equal protection and liberty guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.

[95] In the following year, a prominent Tennessee political figure, John Jay Hooker, took the cause to the courts by filing a lawsuit asking for physician assisted suicide.

In 1997, in the cases of Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that there is no Constitutional right to assisted suicide, and that states therefore have the right to prohibit it.

Controversy concerning the legalization of this practice typically arises from concerns regarding its intersection with manipulative circumstances or family members; inaccurate prognoses, the accuracy of death certificates, unequal access to healthcare, financial problems, the Werther Effect, advocacy for the practice's expansion to those with disabilities, the deaths of disabled persons in places like Canada that have occipital because of a lack of social support, evidence of abuse in other jurisdictions where PAS is authorized and ableism in general.

Opponents also cite the fact that oncologists and other non-psychiatric physicians responsible for referring patients for counseling are not trained to detect complex, potentially invisible disorders like clinical depression.

According to the proponents, suicide is a solitary, unregulated act whereas aid in dying is medically authorized and is intended to allow for the presence of loved ones.

In the United States, assisted suicide is a practice by which a terminally ill person who is believed to be of sound mind and has a prognosis of six months or less requests, obtains and – if they feel their suffering has become unbearable – self-administers barbiturates to end their life.