On Monday, California became the fifth state to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, bringing an end to decades of moral and legislative debate.

Right now in Belgium, if you wanted to die, a team of doctors would be there to help you. You need not have a terminal illness, or be necessarily anywhere close to the end of your life. You could be depressed or suffering from anxiety or any number of psychological ailments and that would be enough to constitute assisted suicide. Your family and friends would hardly be consulted on the matter because it is your free will.

Deaf twin brothers Marc and Eddy Verbessem of Belgium decided to end their lives in tandem rather than go blind.

A Dutch group called the Levenseindekliniek (Life-End Clinic) announced plans to roll out a mobile euthanasia team starting this week.

Jack Kevorkian, the physician and assisted-suicide advocate who claimed to have helped 130 people kill themselves and served eight years in prison for second degree murder after letting a 60 Minutes crew film a suicide, died last night the old-fashioned way: from a blood clot.

In these rapidly changing times, it's almost comforting to know that some issues can still divide the country right down the middle. Gallup has conducted its 2011 Values and Beliefs poll, which presented a sample of Americans with 17 controversial issues facing the nation today — everything from "wearing fur" (56% find it morally acceptable vs. 39% thinking it's morally wrong) to "pornography" (30% vs. 66%) to "gay or lesbian relations" (like fur, also 56% vs. 39%) to "cloning humans" (12% vs. 84%). One topic, however, produced the least amount of public consensus, with just 3% separating the moral yays from the moral nays: "doctor-assisted suicide."

In a landslide vote yesterday, the Swiss decided to keep in place a 1941 law that allows assisted suicide, as well "suicide tourism" for foreigners. Conservatives and evangelical religious figures in the country tried to have the practice banned through a referendum. Liberal and even some right wing parties opposed the ban.

36 people died last year under Washington's assisted-suicide law. Good. That's what it's there for.