John Kelly, director of Second Thoughts, a Massachusetts-based organization of disability activists who oppose the assisted-suicide ballot petition, said assisted suicide brings up big problems.
Most of the few existing assisted-suicide laws rely on the principle of active and informed consent to a procedure that may, or will, lead to death.
The ruling also gave permission for Gloria Taylor, one of five plaintiffs, to seek doctor-assisted suicide.
Last November, voters in Massachusetts narrowly defeated a measure legalizing physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
British Columbia's Supreme Court has struck down a portion of Canada's criminal code that bans physician-assisted suicide.
Whereas, one in 700 deaths in the US state of Oregon are from assisted suicide - voluntary euthanasia is not allowed.
Last November Oregon voters strongly approved a ballot initiative allowing doctor-assisted suicide.
Massachusetts is scheduled to vote on a similar law in November, while Montana allows physician-assisted suicide as a result of a court case.
But he lost out to Al Pacino, who scooped a rare TV award for his role as an advocate of doctor-assisted suicide in You Don't Know Jack.
Switzerland and the American state of Oregon have also passed laws which allow some forms of physician-assisted suicide, a practice which goes on everywhere whatever the law says.
The Dutch parliament is currently considering a bill which would make permanent a 15-year experiment in allowing doctor-assisted suicide by codifying in law regulations which have governed such practices.
In a recent Populus poll for the Times, three-quarters of those who responded supported a change in the law to allow doctor-assisted suicide (which doctors themselves are not keen on).
Cathy Ludlum, of Manchester, a disabled-rights activist who has spinal muscular atrophy, said she is concerned the Public Health Committee has decided to hold the public hearing and worries the issue of doctor-assisted suicide will not go away soon.
Prosecutors initially charged Kevorkian with first-degree murder and assisted suicide after "60 Minutes" showed the tape of Youk's death to a nation-wide audience on Nov. 23.
"There's no grass-roots cry for assisted suicide in the state of Connecticut, " said Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the socially conservative Family Institute.
At the Dec. 9 hearing, Gorosh argued that prosecutors cannot charge Kevorkian with both first-degree murder and assisted suicide because the charges contradict each other.
In 2009, he and Dr. Ron Levine, of Greenwich, along with end-of-life advocates, sued to seek a clarification of the state's decades-old ban on assisted suicide, citing concerns about Connecticut doctors being prosecuted for giving medications to their dying patients.
And there is also the slippery-slope argument: once assisted suicide is permitted for the terminally ill, vulnerable members of society, such as old people regarded as a nuisance by their families, may all too easily be pushed down it.
Former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer had argued assisted suicide was in a legal "no-man's land".
The BBC Two show, which followed the best-selling author as he examined the case for assisted suicide, was described by the judges as "groundbreaking, revelatory and profoundly moving".
Stephen Drake of the Rochester, New York-based group Not Dead Yet, which is against assisted suicide, compared Final Exit Network and the wording in its training manual to a cult and said it's hard to distinguish what the group does from murder.
The debate over assisted suicide has resurfaced after Tony Nicklinson, a man with locked-in syndrome, died a week after losing a legal bid to end his life.
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In January, the Commission on Assisted Dying - set up and funded by campaigners who want to see a change in the law - said there was a "strong case" for allowing assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill in England and Wales.
In January, the Commission on Assisted Dying - led by Lord Falconer and set up and funded by campaigners who want to see a change in the law - said there was a "strong case" for allowing assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill in England and Wales.
There are strong arguments against this sort of assisted suicide, whether it takes the form of the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment or of more active measures such as the administration of lethal injections.
In a pre-trial ruling, the judge ruled that pain and suffering evidence was relevant to assisted suicide but not murder.
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