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Until after a Supreme Court ruling in 2006 threw out a Justice Department effort to block Oregonâs law, no other state permitted assisted suicide. Washington adopted its measure in 2008. Several northern European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, also allow assisted suicide.
Questions and controversies about assisted suicide have become widespread within the health care community and society at large. In 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution neither permits nor prohibits PAS. In the same year, Oregon became the first state to legalize suicide.