Revisiting the Legality of Physician-Assisted Suicide

Alison Key, MJLST Staff

Already this year, two states have expanded options for physician-assisted suicide (PAS) by striking all or part of statutes designed to criminalize the end of life treatment.

In January, a state trial court in New Mexico reviewed NMSA § 30-2-4, which prohibits physician-assisted suicide. The New Mexico trial court ruled that patients have a right under the State’s due process clause to choose to pursue a physician’s aid in dying, therefore the state law violated the state’s constitution. Commentators expect this ruling to be reviewed by the New Mexico Supreme Court, or possibly expanded to other districts through similar trial court decisions.

In Minnesota, the victory was smaller, but application more widespread. Last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court struck portions of the Minnesota law prohibiting assisted suicide as unconstitutional. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that the Minn. Stat. § 609.215, which prohibits “intentionally advis[ing], encourag[ing], or assit[ing] another in taking the other’s own life” was in conflict with First Amendment rights to free speech. Of the three actions prohibited in the statute, “advising” and “encouraging” suicide, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled, are protected under the First Amendment.

While the Minnesota case was determined on constitutional grounds largely irrelevant to the ethics of PAS, both the Minnesota and New Mexico decisions have contributed to the larger, national trend of eliminating the legal barriers to PAS as a medical treatment. These two recent cases are significant in the larger debate on physician- and health care provider-assisted suicide, which has been gaining increased attention in recent years.

Minnesota and New Mexico, before this year, belonged to a majority of states that banned assisted suicide. (A few states, like Minnesota, also banned “encouraging” or “advising” suicide; these laws are rare because of First Amendment complications.) While there is no federal legislation on the subject (the Supreme Court in Washington v. Glucksberg held only that there is no right to PAS under the federal due process clause), four states have legalized PAS: Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. The ongoing litigation in New Mexico may soon bring that number to five. Three of these four states (Oregon, Vermont and Washington) legalized PAS through legislation or referendum, while Montana and parts of New Mexico have legalized PAS through state judicial precedent (in 2008 and 2014, respectively; the New Mexico decision from last January is currently only applicable in one district). Because all legalization efforts have occurred in the last three decades, the trend to eliminate legal barriers to PAS appears to be a recent one. Oregon has the oldest PAS law on the books, from 1994, while the remaining states have all legalized PAS since 2008.

In addition to the recent trend to legalize PAS, another interesting trend is the division in support for PAS between the public and experts. Among those presumed to be experts (based on subscription to the New England Journal of Medicine), about 67 percent of those polled in the United States indicated opposition to PAS. One of the more vocal opponents of PAS is a physicians’ professional organization: the American Medical Association. The AMA takes the position that PAS is “fundamentally inconsistent with the physician’s role” and is an improper extension of the right to refuse treatment. The AMA’s published opinion has remained unchanged since 1996, suggesting it is not reflective of the current trends toward more liberal PAS laws.

Conversely, the public tends to support PAS, if termed correctly. A Gallup poll last May indicated that 70 percent of the public agreed that “when patients and their families wanted it, doctors should be allowed to ‘end the patient’s life by some painless means.'” The favorable percentage dropped to 51 percent when the question was changed to include the word “suicide,” suggesting a social connotation of the word suicide, rather than disapproval of the act itself. The public’s pro-PAS view seems to be driving the current trend to remove legal barriers to PAS.

It is clear that the hard stance against PAS has eroded in recent decades. The New Mexico state trial court decision in January announced, “[c]ertainly the medical and legal ethical considerations regarding end of life care have changed over the past fifty years. ” Last year alone, six states introduced bills to directly legalize PAS, including Connecticut, Vermont (passed), New Jersey, Kansas, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. In four other states, bills related to the issue of PAS, short of full legalization were introduced.

After the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling last week, another case on assisted suicide pending before the Minnesota Supreme Court has the public’s attention. With yet another PAS case coming before the Minnesota Supreme Court, New Mexico courts contemplating the expansion of the trial court ruling across the state, and bills becoming a frequent occurrence in other states, PAS legalization is becoming a trend to watch–in Minnesota, New Mexico, and nationally. With baby boomers nearing the age where end of life decisions become more pressing, discussions about legalizing PAS to expand end of life options will become more prevalent and more urgent.