Supporting assisted suicide. How do the public and physicians feel about aiding in death?

In January 1997, the Michigan State Medical Society began a series of interdisciplinary forums to discuss guidelines and safeguards for physician-assisted suicide as part of its ongoing analysis of that vexing issue. The forums derive from the minority statement in the MSMS official position, from physicians who would approve of assisting suicide in a limited number of cases, but only upon the patient's voluntary request and as a last resort. Is it possible to develop guidelines which would succeed in limiting the practice of physician-assisted suicide to that small group of patients? Or, as opponents charge, would guidelines predictably fail to contain the practice and lead to the feared slippery slope?