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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.
In the late 1960s, eighteen U.S. states had no laws against suicide. By the late 1980s, thirty of the fifty states had no laws against suicide or suicide attempts but every state had laws declaring it to be a felony to aid, advise or encourage another person to commit suicide.