Montana Judge: Man Has Right to Assisted Suicide

ABC News ^ | 12/6/08 | Amy Beth Hanson/AP

[wagglebee]

A Montana judge has ruled that doctor-assisted suicides are legal in the state, a decision likely to be appealed as the state argues that the Legislature, not the court, should decide whether terminally ill patients have the right to take their own life.

Judge Dorothy McCarter issued the ruling late Friday in the case of a Billings man with terminal cancer, who had sued the state with four physicians that treat terminally ill patients and a nonprofit patients' rights group.

"The Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity," McCarter said in the ruling.

It also said that those patients had the right to obtain self-administered medications to hasten death if they find their suffering to be unbearable, and that physicians can prescribe such medication without fear of prosecution.

"The patient's right to die with dignity includes protection of the patient's physician from liability under the state's homicide statutes," the judge wrote.

Attorney General Mike McGrath said Saturday that attorneys in his office would discuss the ruling next week and expected the state will appeal the ruling.

[Chickensoup]

Just read the Longest Way Home, by Grogan. He wrote Marly and Me, a book about a dog

In the Longest Way Home he describes how the hosptial puts his father to sleep as they injected drugs after he was taken off of the vent. I did not read his dog book but did wonder whether ol’ Dad was receiving the same treatment as his dog.

It was a terrifyingly mundane episode.

[LadyDoc]

be afraid...be very afraid...

already the NYTimes is running article after article about health care costs, the needs to refuse to treat the old if it’s too expensive, etc. etc...

[muawiyah]

The old bat is nuts. One guy's right to scragg himself simply does not translate into his right to have someone else commit murder immune from society's restraint.

I'd suggest that if she thinks it's a great idea she try it out first, then get back to us with a full report.

[little jeremiah]

So people who really want to off themseles for real shouldn’t threaten. People who threaten actually want to be stopped (and helped).

I almost committed suicide once, many long years ago. Thank God! I reversed the action and saved myself. I was serious, no threats or public notice involved. But if I hadn’t been able to reverse the action, it would have been completely right for someone to have stopped me.

It is basic human decency to prevent others from committing suicide, if possible, and certainly not to promote or legalize it.

[wagglebee]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm

[jveritas]

Why does someone need assistance to commit suicide?

[BykrBayb]

When my father-in-law was dying, I did whatever I could to make his life worth living. I never pushed him to commit suicide. I cannot understand those of you who would.