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Right To Die

By pr2188

  • First U.S. Statute outlawing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicied

    Enacted in New York, this statute lead the way for almost all other states to have laws in place by the ratification of the 14th Amendement.

  • American Medical Association Opposes Euthanasia

    The Journal of the American Medical Association attacks the pro-euthanasia movement saying,"...make the physician don the robes of an exacutioner."

  • Public support increases during Great Depression

    As life started to suck in the 1930s during the Great Depression, Euthanasia support increased in the United States.

  • Voluntary Euthanasia Legislation Society founded

    Society is founded in England

  • Bill to legalize euthanasia defeated in House of Lords

    This defeat combined with the outbreak of WWII and the discovery of Nazi extermination camps quelled the debate for a number of years.

  • Voluntary Euthanasia Act introduced in the Senate

    Nebraska Senator John Comstock introduced legislation called the Voluntary Euthanasia Act, which called for the legalization of active euthanasia. It was never voted on but demonstrates an emerging interest in legislating euthanasia.

  • National Society for the Legalization of Euthanasia founded

    Founded by Charles Francis Potter, the foundation believed in the right for terminally ill patients to voluntarily end their lives.

  • World Medical Association condems physician assisted suicide

    The World Medical Association votes to recommend to all national medical associations that euthanasia be condemned "under any circumstances." In the same year, the American Medical Association issues a statement that the majority of doctors do not believe in euthanasia.

  • Petition to amend the Declaration of Human Rights

    American and British Euthanasia Societies petition the United Nations to amend the Declaration of Human Rights to include euthanasia

  • Patients rights gains acceptance

    The idea of patient rights to defy the authority of doctors and even choose to refuse life-saving care.

  • US Senate holds first national hearings on euthanasia

    The "Death with Dignity" debates raged in the Senate. Mainly between the euthanasia societies and the church

  • Society for the Right to Die founded

    Yup, pretty self explanatory.

  • Supreme Court Rules on Quinlan Case

    21-year-old Karen Ann Quinlan had fallen into an irreversible coma at a party in 1974. After doctors declared that she was in a "persistent vegetative state," her parents went to court to have her respirator removed.
    The New Jersey Supreme Court rules in 1976 that Karen Quinlan can be detached from her respirator.

  • California becomes the first state to legalize euthanasia

    California legislature legalizes euthansia for terminally ill patients.

  • 7 more states grant right-to-die

    New Mexico, Arkansas, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, North Carolina, and Texas -- signed right-to-die bills into law.

  • Pope issues statement against mercy killings

    In his statement, Pope John Paul II declares that while the practice of euthanasia is wrong, the patient reserves the right to refuse "extra-ordinary" means to sustain life.

  • California State Bar supports right to die

    California State Bar Conference becomes first major public body to support right to die.

  • Supreme Court rules on patient rights

    Supreme Court rules that a patient has the right to refuse life saving/sustaining medicine.

  • Polls show majority support assisted suicide

    Political issue polls show that over 50% of Americans support physician assisted death.

  • Washington voters defeat a right to die vote

    Again, self explanatory.

  • Death with Dignity act is defeated in California

  • Death with Dignity Act passed in Oregon

  • Supreme Court rules that there is no right to die in the Constitution

  • Kevorkian performs assisted suicide on national TV

  • Michigan defeats assisted suicide bill

  • Jack Kevorkian is convicted of murder

    A Michigan court convicts Jack Kevorkian, MD, for the murder of Thomas Youk and sentences him to 10-25 years in prison.

  • Ashcroft challenges Oregon's Death with Dignity Act

    US Attorney-General John Ashcroft asks the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the finding of a lower court judge that the Oregon Death With Dignity Act of 1994 does not contravene federal powers.

  • Supreme Court holds up Oregon's Death with Dignity Act

  • Washington passed Death with Dignity Act

    Washington becomes the second US state to legalize physician assisted suicide

  • Montana becomes third state to legalize assisted suicide

  • Vermont becomes 4th state to legalize assisted suicide

  • Dr. Kavorkian performs first assisted suicide

    Named "Dr. Death." Jack Kavorkian assists in first of many mercy killings.

  • Brittany Maynard makes national news

    Brittany Maynard chooses to end her life on the predetermined date of Octorber 31.