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A Big Win in New Mexico

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New Mexico Supreme Court

We have some big news to report out of New Mexico.

The New Mexico Supreme Court recently ruled that terminally ill residents do not have a constitutionally protected right to physician assisted suicide. This decision by the state Supreme Court is a major win for those fighting to prevent the legalization of PAS.

The case that the Supreme Court decided on began in 2012 when a woman from Santa Fe who had been diagnosed with aggressive uterine cancer sought to have the state District Court rule in favor of allowing physician assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.  The Supreme Court unanimously decided to uphold the earlier decision of the New Mexico Court of Appeals, which ruled against the plaintiff. In the state Supreme Court’s ruling, Justice Edward L. Chavez stated in his opinion that “end-of-life decisions are inherently fraught with the potential for abuse.”

This case also exposed one of the best arguments against physician assisted suicide: patients often outlive their terminal diagnosis by months or years. In this case, the plaintiff’s cancer has gone into remission since she first filed suit seeking to legalize physician assisted suicide in 2012 and she is still alive.  

While this is a huge momentum builder in our fight against PAS, we know that our work only continues, until we are sure that this policy is fully repudiated.

We look forward to our continued work together to stop this bill in Maryland, and we hope you’ll join our cause.

(If you haven’t already, please sign up to receive email updates from MD Against PAS.)

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