MONTPELIER — As so often happens on difficult, emotional debates, lawmakers and observers could tell at a glance Friday where visitors to the Statehouse stood on what some of them described as "death with dignity" and others called "physician-assisted suicide."

Those supporting an initiative that would allow patients with terminal illnesses to end their lives with a prescription wore green stickers declaring: "Listen to the Patient."

Opponents, who view the proposal as nothing more than state-sanctioned suicide, donned yellow stickers making their view crystal clear: "I Oppose Physician-Assisted Suicide."

The House Human Services Committee opened its consideration of the bill Friday with limited testimony, hearing only from two experts on opposite sides of the issue.

Leading the supporters was Barbara Roberts, who was governor of Oregon when her state became the first and only one in the country to adopt a death-with-dignity law. She praised Vermont lawmakers for considering becoming the second, arguing that such a law would be little used, but a humane way for terminally ill people to determine how their own lives will end.

"They want to have self control at the end of their life," she said.

Dr. Robert Orr, a Vermont physician who has lobbied around the country against such laws, said he and the opponents he represented believe there are other options for people who are dying.

"If a patient wants to hasten death, he or she merely needs to stop eating and drinking," Orr said.

Although the day was reserved for the experts, there were plenty of people in the building to buttonhole legislators and witness the proceedings. They didn't get a chance to testify, but that didn't stop them from sharing their thoughts.

"We come here as an impressive, diverse group of committed individuals," said Dick Walters of Shelburne, who helped organize the movement with his wife five years ago.

Equally committed were the opponents, including Jane Cody, who questioned Roberts earlier in the day about the Oregon experience. "My concern is physicians and people who have a say over ill patients will have more control over that ill patient," Cody said.

The bill would allow someone who was terminally ill and had a prognosis of six months or less to live to ask a physician for a prescription that would end his or her life. The patient would need two doctors agreeing, and would have to undergo counseling.

The bill also would require that the medication be administered by the patient, not the doctor.

Roberts described those as safeguards guaranteeing that the law wasn't abused. "This is not a political issue, but a human issue," she said. "The people who use it do not think of it as suicide and their families don't and the law doesn't."

But Orr said he was not satisfied with any state sanctioning of a procedure he said was suicide. "Oregon's safeguards are not safe enough," he said. "The use of terms like 'death with dignity' I find offensive."