In 1992, Sue Rodriguez forced the right-to-die debate into the spotlight in Canada.
In a video statement played to members of Parliament, the Victoria woman, diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in 1991, asked legislators to change the law banning assisted suicide.
"If I cannot give consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?" she said.
The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately ruled against Rodriguez, but her struggle galvanized the public. Rodriguez committed suicide in 1994 with the help of an anonymous doctor.
In December 2008, a Quebec jury acquitted Stéphan Dufour on a single charge of assisted suicide. Dufour had admitted to installing in a closet a rope, chain and dog collar that his uncle, Chantal Maltais, used to kill himself in September 2006.
What is the law in the U.S.?
Oregon is the first state with a law that specifically allows physician-assisted suicide, enacted in 1997.
Washington adopted a ballot measure based on the Oregon law, called Initiative 1000, during the November 2008 election.
In December 2008, a Montana judge overturned that state's law prohibiting doctor-assisted suicide in a ruling on a case involving a man with terminal cancer. The state's attorney general plans to appeal the decision.
Only three places besides Oregon openly and legally authorize assisted suicide: the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.
Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/02/09/f-assisted-suicide.html#ixzz1CYX8qpfP
Change is slowly coming.
In the case of the woman with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) "The initial or predominant symptoms are impaired speech or swallowing along with wasting of the tongue. The outcome is generally worse in this condition since swallowing and breathing are affected early in the course of the disease."
http://chealth.canoe.ca/condition_info_details.asp?disease_id=4
Refusing treatment in this case would result in slowly suffocating meaning the patient has a choice between being kept alive while they deteriorate further or suffocating to death. One has to wonder what inhuman being would force someone to choose between those two options rather than helping them pass on peacefully.