The trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday in state District Court in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In a lawsuit filed in March by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, the trial is a legal challenge to a decades-old New Mexico law that prohibits physicians from helping terminally ill patients. The law currently states that “whoever commits assisting suicide is guilty of a fourth-degree felony.”

ABC News reports that ACLU lawyers have stated the lawsuit asks the court to rule that doctors may give patients the option of ending their lives. According to the lawsuit, the New Mexico doctors seek to be allowed to prescribe medication to terminally-ill patients who want to end their lives.

A Santa Fe woman with advanced uterine cancer later joined two doctors in their legal challenge as well. When the lawsuit was first announced in March 2012, the District Attorney told News 13 she could not remember a case of assisted suicide involving a doctor being prosecuted in New Mexico, also adding that medical privacy laws would make those cases difficult to prosecute anyway.

The lawsuit seeks a clarification and a distinction that the statute not apply to doctors who write a prescription for medication that can help a dying patient end his or her life. The ACLU of New Mexico along with Compassion & Choices will argue their case in front of District Court Judge Nan Nash.

New Mexico could become the third state in the nation to let doctors help their terminally-ill patients end their lives by prescribing medication to end their suffering. As it stands, it is a felony to deliberately aid someone in taking their own life.

The post New Mexico ‘Right-to-Die’ Trial first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, observed while signing the law, “Vermonters who face terminal illness and are in excruciating pain at the end of their lives now have control over their destinies. This is the right thing to do.”

The law removes legal penalties for doctors who prescribe medication to assist terminally ill patients seeking end their lives voluntarily. However, Vermont doctors can prescribe such medication only for legal residents of the state.

The law would be adapted in degrees and for the first three years, patients requesting death-inducing drugs would have to make the request thrice. Also, both the primary physician and a consulting physician will have to agree that the patient is capable of making an informed decision and also suffering from a terminal illness.

From July 1, 2016, the process and practice of prescribing death-inducing medicine will be supervised by professional practice standards.

Supporters of the law claim that the law can now help patients avoid years of needless suffering in cases like bone cancer or other terminal illnesses. However, opponents of the law remain skeptic and hold that the presence of the law can encourage terminally ill patients to go for assisted suicide without exhausting all options. Opponents are also apprehensive that the law can cause people to choose death rather than continue to be a burden on their families.

Kathryn Tucker, director of legal affairs at Compassion and Choices said in a statement that, “Vermont’s law reflects another normalization of the practice of aid in dying in the practice of medicine.”

Edward Mahoney of True Dignity Vermont, a group opposing the law, said, “We now have state-sanctioned suicide in Vermont … If the state won’t protect Vermonters, we will try.”

The post New Vermont Law to Allow Doctors Assist in Suicide first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

A triple murder-suicide in Hacienda Heights is pulling the responses of neighbors and relatives in different directions. It seems that Don Crabtree killed his daughter in law, Rita Delehanty, 62, who suffered severe Alzheimer’s; his wife, Carol Crabtree, 80, who suffered from chronic joint pain and was stuck in a wheelchair; and finally himself, 84, who was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. He shot them both before shot himself twice, once with a handgun, and once with a shotgun, but apparently not before calling 911.

The motive for the killings is not clear, but their son, Jim Crabtree, has an interpretation: “This is the classic ending of three people with terminal illnesses,” he explained to reporters gathered outside their home, as reported by the Huffington Post. “The pain and misery that comes from this dementia, until you’ve lived it you don’t get it.”

Apparently somewhat relieved by the outcome, Jim explained how his parents would take care of his wife, who once was a nurse like him, for hours while he went to work; how his wife no longer at all knew who he was. “My wife didn’t know who I was. My wife didn’t know we were married. You try to help her, she yells, she screams, she hits you.”

He later stated that “when somebody dies, you don’t want to go out and say I’m overjoyed my parents and wife are dead. But in some cases, my wife died years ago.”

Perhaps only somebody who has had to take care of a dementia patient can understand such ambivalence, but the neighbors seem somewhat understanding. Alice Parrish said, “It’s shocking. You don’t expect it in your own backyard,” but also noted that “[Carol] couldn’t walk anymore, she was in a lot of pain.”

Another neighbor, Marjorie Beauer, said “I feel more grief for them then calling it murder. There ought to be another word…. It was probably just a mercy killing. I advocate for the right to die with dignity, and we don’t have that in California.”

The post Elderly Man’s Triple Killing in California May Be Euthanasia first appeared on JDJournal Blog.