To EMJ: YES, doctors have said it IS possible today. Just because YOU think it isn't, doesn't mean you know all the medical advances available! Doctors have said there is NO reason for ANYONE to suffer such pain. NO ONE. To TJGypsy: If you want to kill yourself, there is no constitutional right to demand that others must help you do it. Period. You have no right and are not entitled to have government order others to help murder you for any reason, but especially just because you are depressed and right then find no point to your life and want to die. Nice way to clean out mental hospitals, isn't it? What a stupid notion -it would mean murdering some people if they are depressed would be legal, but only illegal if they are mentally healthy. Suicidal ideation is a mental illness, part of depression which is a treatable condition and you are actually saying help kill the mentally ill. I can already see defense lawyers all claiming murder victims actually wanted to die anyway -especially if they ever saw a psychiatrist. Update: AGAIN people saying yes, if terminal and suffering. How about demanding we first relieve the pain? Society won't insure they get the proper pain relief they need, but will just offer to kill them off even earlier instead and deprive them of even more time? What kind of people are you? Doctors have said repeatedly that because of all the medical advances today, there is absolutely NO reason for anyone to suffer unrelieved debilitating pain anymore -and have also said there is a serious problem in this country because pain is seriously under treated. The result of under treated pain is that people are suffering needlessly! Unrelieved pain makes people want to die, so the proper answer is not to go ahead and kill them -but to relieve the pain so the person enjoys a much better quality of life for his remaining time. How about we address that first, before just bumping them off early and depriving them of even more time, huh? My father-in-law developed debilitating pain from his cancer not too long after being diagnosed as terminal -nearly two full years before he died. Yet because he was properly treated for that pain, he spent the next 23 months, his remaining time, doing what he loved most -going to auctions, farming, taking care of his horses and spending time with family and friends -right up to the end when he died, still painfree. Spending his remaining time doing what he loved most and as he wished -painfree. No needless suffering and lingering in pain and agony even though his cancer had replaced nearly all the bone in his pelvic bones and had invaded several internal organs. Although if he hadn't found a doctor willing to treat his pain, he would have no doubt died even earlier -from the pain. That was time that he ended up cherishing and was glad he didn't miss and didn't want to miss. Yet before his pain was relieved, was unable to enjoy and would rather have been dead than suffer such pain. The answer was to relieve his pain, not go ahead and kill him. Just because you have a disease that will shorten your life and that disease causes you pain, doesn't mean you are somehow less entitled to the full measure of pain relief. People don't choose to off themselves even earlier just because they find out they have a disease that will shorten their lives -and decide to just make it an even shorter life. They consider it when they are experiencing debilitating and unrelieved pain. Sooooo RELIEVE THE PAIN -because it is today possible to do that. We should be demanding an end to needless suffering, not pretending the only thing we can offer someone needlessly suffering is an even earlier death. If people knew they could spend whatever remaining time they have painfree, they wouldn't choose to end that life even earlier, but to spend that time doing what is most important to them. They have the right to that remaining time and to have that remaining time painfree.