From the NYT:
In January, a district court in New Mexico authorized doctors to provide lethal prescriptions and declared a constitutional right for “a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying.” Last May, the Vermont Legislature passed a law permitting it, joining Montana, Oregon and Washington. This spring, advocates are strongly promoting “death with dignity” bills in Connecticut and other states.
Public support for assisted dying has grown in the past half-century but depends in part on terminology. In a Gallup Poll conducted in May, for example, 70 percent of respondents agreed that when patients and their families wanted it, doctors should be allowed to “end the patient’s life by some painless means.” In 1948, that share was 37 percent, and it rose steadily for four decades but has remained roughly stable since the mid-1990s.
Yet in the same 2013 poll, only 51 percent supported allowing doctors to help a dying patient “commit suicide.”
Here's the graph from the Gallup Poll linked to above. Perhaps this movement will join marijuana and same sex marriage as policy areas where major changes are happening on the state level.
The shift might have a lot to do with how the policy is framed. Death with dignity sounds better than suicide.
