In 1994, Oregon approved Measure 16, the Death with Dignity Act, allowing terminally ill patients to obtain a lethal prescription. In 1997, it went into full effect after legal attempts to prevent it, in which Janet Reno supported.
Congress passes the Patient Self Determination Act requiring hospitals that are federally funded to tell patients that they have the right to demand or refuse treatment.
In an Annual Report in Oregon from 2001, twenty-one patients who participated in Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS)-cancer was the underlying illness. The three most mentioned concerns from these patients were: lost of autonomy, little or no ability to participate in activities that makes life enjoyable and lost control of body functions.
In 1994, Death with Dignity Education Center founded in California as a national nonprofit organization that works and promotes a comprehensive and responsive system for the terminally ill patients.
In 1994, The California Bar endorsed physician-assisted suicide. With an 85 percent majority and no active opposition, the Conference of Delegates supported that physicians should be allowed to prescribe medication to terminally ill, competent adults for self-administration in order to lessened life and hasten death.
In 1998, Measure B on the Michigan ballot to legalize physician-assisted suicide defeated by 70 - 30%.
The American Medical Association Homepage
The World Federation of the Right to Die Societies