SANTA FE, N.M., Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A New Mexico judge has ruled terminally ill competent patients have the right to seek a doctor's help to end their lives.
The decision Monday by New Mexico Second Judicial District Judge Nan Nash could mean New Mexico would become the fifth state to allow doctors to prescribe fatal prescriptions to terminally ill patients, CNN reported Tuesday.
The New Mexico's attorney general's office said it was reviewing the decision to determine whether it would appeal.
"This court cannot envision a right more fundamental, more private or more integral to the liberty, safety and happiness of a New Mexican than the right of a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying," Hash wrote. "If decisions made in the shadow of one's imminent death regarding how they and their loved ones will face that death are not fundamental and at the core of these constitutional guarantees, then what decisions are?"
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The American Civil Liberties Union and end-of-life advocacy group Compassion and Choices sued on behalf of two New Mexico doctors and Aja Riggs, a cancer patient. The judge was asked to consider if the doctors should be allowed to write prescriptions for a terminally ill cancer patient wanting to use drugs to die.
Riggs said she's glad to have the option, even if her cancer is in remission, CNN said.
"I am really pleased that the court has recognized that terminally ill patients should have more choice in the manner of their death," said Riggs.
"Most Americans want to die peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones, not die in agony in a hospital," she said. "I feel the same way. If my cancer returns and I face intolerable suffering, I want the option to cut it short, and to die peacefully at home."
Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont permit doctor-assisted suicide.
