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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.
(Some states listed it on the books as a felony but imposed no penalty.) Curiously, as of 1963, six states still considered attempted suicide a crime â North and South Dakota, Washington, New Jersey, Nevada, and Oklahoma.