Yesterday, Compassion & Choices and the ACLU of New Mexico concluded arguments in a landmark trial seeking to establish that aid in dying is legal in New Mexico. Morris v. New Mexico is a test case, bringing before a court for the first time the claim that ambiguous state laws prohibiting “assisted suicide” do not apply to physicians who write aid-in-dying prescriptions to mentally competent, terminally ill adults.
Kathryn Tucker explains the core argument:
This case challenges the assumption that vague, antiquated prohibitions of assisted suicide pertain to aid in dying. The assumption is unfounded. . . . Such laws are intended to prevent the impulsive act of an otherwise healthy person to end his life, perhaps due to situational depression, causing impaired judgment. The choice of a mentally competent, terminally ill patient to cut short suffering before death, when the patient finds the dying process unbearable, is fundamentally different and not addressed by such laws.
Notably, the court accepted an amicus brief in the case filed by the New Mexico Psychological Association. It concludes that “the practice of good professional psychology in New Mexico requires that the law … recognize that aid in dying is not a form of suicide.”
The trial included two days of testimony from patient and physician plaintiffs, and expert witnesses. Patient plaintiff 49-year-old Aja Riggs testified about being diagnosed with advanced uterine cancer and wanting the comfort of knowing the option of aid in dying is available if her suffering in the final stages of her illness becomes unbearable.
The judge said she intends to rule on the case within 30 days.
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