One door closes, another opens

SHOULD doctors be allowed to prescribe life-ending medication to terminally ill patients who ask for it? For this newspaper the answer is simple: the state should no more intrude on personal decisions at the close of life than at any point during it. But doctor-assisted dying is legal in only a few European countries, Colombia and four sparsely populated American states.Last week, for the first time since both places said “no” in the 1990s, lawmakers in Britain and California voted on this question—and came to different conclusions. By 330 to 118, British MPs rejected a bill modelled on Oregon’s 1997 Death with Dignity Act; by narrower margins, California’s state assembly and senate passed a similar measure. If its governor, Jerry Brown, does not veto the bill within 30 days, doctor-assisted dying will soon be legal in America’s most populous state.