Support for physician participation in the suicides of terminally ill patients is increasing. Much of the controversy over physician-assisted suicide, however, centers on the debate over whether or not the practice should be legalized. A woman with cancer became the first known person to die under the physician-assisted suicide law in March 1998. In 1994, Oregon voters approved a referendum called the Death with Dignity Act, which was enacted in 1997. This law allows patients given six months or less to live who wish to hasten their death to obtain lethal doses of drugs prescribed by two doctors. Between 1998 and 2000, ninety-six lethal prescriptions were written and seventy patients took the fatal doses. Doctor-assisted suicide is legal only in the states of Washington and Oregon; elsewhere in the country the practice remains illegal. Many patients are unable to get the help they need to end their lives and must involuntarily endure unbearable pain. Some terminally ill patients experience an intolerably poor quality of life and would rather end their lives than continue until their body gives up. Doctor-assisted suicide should be legalized because it offers terminally ill patients the option to end their lives when they feel it is no longer worth living with the help of a doctor. Jack Kevorkian, also known as “Dr. Death." made a "Suicide Machine" on September 17, 1998. His invention injected lethal doses of drugs into a patient, which then caused his death. His first patient was Janet Adkins, who had Alzheimer's disease. She he requested the procedure because he felt he could no longer spend the rest of his life with that structure... middle of paper... legalization of assisted suicide by Sicians." Speech. October 11, 2005. Www.eutanasia.procon.org. Network. 8 October 2013. Suicide facts in brief. Data sheet. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12 August 2009. Web. 09 October 2013. .Tiedemann, Marlisa, and Dominique Valiquet. EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE: INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES. Publication no. PRB07-03E. Comp. Law and Government Division. Np: Library of Parliament, 2008. EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE: INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES. Library of Parliament, revised July 17, 2008. Web. October 10, 2013. "Washington." Patients' Rights Council. Np, nd Web. November 16. 2013. .