Dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, Patrick Matheny had trouble self-administering the lethal drugs allowed to him under Oregon's assisted suicide law, so his brother-in-law helped him to do so. Following a brief investigation of the killing, deputy attorney general David Schuman concluded that the Death With Dignity Act may discriminate against disabled persons either under the state constitution or the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that the state may have to provide "reasonable accommodation that would enable the disabled to avail themselves of the Act's provisions."

Jack Kevorkian was convicted in Michigan of second-degree murder for directly administering lethal drugs to Thomas Youk, a clearly premeditated killing that was staged for CBS's "60 Minutes" program. What primarily prompted Youk, who suffered from the same disease, to consent to his own killing was the fear that he would choke to death as a result of one of the disease's debilitating effects, but doctors insist that drugs are available to prevent that from happening. Maintaining a strange consistency, Kevorkian himself vowed to commit suicide if convicted.

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