Friday, September 9, 2011

Massachusetts OKs assisted suicide vote for 2012 ballot

by Kathleen Gilbert 

BOSTON, September 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A pro-euthanasia group has won approval from the Massachusetts attorney general to allow voters to decide whether to allow individuals to kill themselves with the help of a physician on next year’s ballot.

Massachusetts Death With Dignity filed its request in August and received approval from AG Martha Coakley on Wednesday.

“These are very intimate personal choices that should remain in the hands of the individual, not the government,” coalition spokesman Steve Crawford told the Associated Press last month.

Euthanasia advocates now need to find 69,000 signatures from registered Massachusetts voters in order to get the question on the November 2012 ballot.

Assisted suicide is currently legal in the United States in three states. Oregon and Washington allowed physicians to administer lethal drugs through ballot initiatives in 1994 and 2008, respectively. The procedure was imposed in Montana by the state supreme court in January 2010.

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