‘You Don’t Want To Open the Door to This,’ Critics Warn, as Support Grows for Assisted Suicide in America 

In Canada, where expansive legal suicide laws are leading to skyrocketing death counts, patients with treatable diseases are being pushed into assisted suicide.

AP/Rich Pedroncelli, file
Supporters of a measure to allow terminally ill people to end their own lives march at the capitol at Sacramento, California, September 24, 2015. AP/Rich Pedroncelli, file

As lawmakers push to legalize euthanasia in several American states, critics are raising concerns that the door to legal assisted suicide, once opened, can’t be shut. 

Efforts are underway by lawmakers in Michigan and Massachusetts, among other states, to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, but some say the legalization inevitably won’t stop there. Massachusetts voters rejected an assisted suicide referendum in 2012 by a thin margin — a 51-49 vote — but polling this year indicates nearly 80 percent of Massachusetts voters support assisted suicide legislation with safeguards.

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