Nicholas Goldberg: Should our aid-in-dying laws be expanded, or are we moving too far too fast?

To take advantage of California's narrowly drawn assisted suicide law one must be terminally ill, with only six months to live, as certified by not one but two doctors.

I've long believed that state officials ought to consider expanding that to include Alzheimer's patients and dementia sufferers who are not on the verge of death, and perhaps to people with other degenerative diseases or who are in chronic, intolerable, untreatable pain. They too deserve the right to make decisions about their own lives and deaths.

These days, right-to-die laws appear to be gaining ground. Film director Jean-Luc Godard brought the debate when asked about his views on dying.)