Legal Commentary

Montana Judge Okays Doctor-Assisted Suicide

By Jeralyn

A judge in Montana has ruled doctor-assisted end of life choices are legal.

In her ruling, Judge McCarter wrote that “the Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity” give a mentally competent person who is terminally ill the right to “die with dignity.”

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

It's hard to fathom anyone would challenge such a basic human right, but the state is expected to appeal.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 06, 2008 (boomark / email).