New Mexico Pushes To define Assisted Suicide

A few doctors started pushing the envelope in New Mexico about a year ago and guess what? We now have a court case asking the state to define assisted suicide. I don’t think this is some form of altruism on the part of these doctors – just the regular pro-death variety.

Assisted suicide: New Mexico court asked to redefine the term

The question before the court in New Mexico is absurdly simple and yet impossibly complex. What is the meaning of "assisting suicide"?

If a terminally ill patient refuses a ventilator or a feeding tube and the physician yields to that decision, is that assisting suicide? If the patient is in excruciating pain and requests total sedation and no nutrition or fluids, can the doctor be held accountable for his death? What if the patient seeks a prescription from her physician so that when the pain of dying is overwhelming she can seek the ultimate relief on her own? more

Thin End Of The Pro-Death Wedge In New Mexico

This is the thin end of the wedge. A while ago two New Mexico doctors challenged the state’s laws outlawing assisted suicide. Now, with alarming predictability, come the victims of life threatening illness joining in the clamor for eventual removal of the law.

Santa Fe woman joins lawsuit to clarify state law making assisted suicide a felony

When Aja Riggs first began experiencing what she thought were symptoms of early menopause last summer, she tried holistic remedies.

When they didn't help, she had an ultrasound exam, after which her doctor told her she should probably also have a biopsy. In August, her doctor called to tell her she had uterine cancer.

"I thought there must be a mistake," she said.

The doctor said the cancer was probably in an early stage and that if her uterus was removed, she would have about a 90 percent chance of survival. But when Riggs awoke after surgery, she learned that all her reproductive organs had been removed because the cancer had spread to her ovaries and lymph nodes.

On Wednesday, the 48-year-old announced she is joining a lawsuit filed by two Albuquerque doctors to clarify a state law that makes assisted suicide a felony. It seeks to clear the way for physicians to help terminally ill patients obtain prescription medication that would allow them to choose to end their own lives without the doctor having to fear prosecution. more

New Mexico Doctor Wants "Clarification" Of State's Assisted Suicide Law

Just as Georgia has passed tough law against assisted suicide and euthanasia, and as Louisiana seeks to do so, a pro-death New Mexico doctor is seeking to “clarify” that state’s laws banning assisted suicide. This is how it often begins – seeking “clarification,” then calling for a “discussion,” then lining up a blue ribbon commission stacked with pro-deathers, and, finally, serious challenges to standing law. If you live in New Mexico, start opposing this madness now.

Doctors seek clarity in New Mexico's assisted suicide law

Dr. Aroop Mangalik has been a cancer specialist for 30 years. He cares for a lot of people who are nearing the end of their lives. Sometimes—rarely—a terminally ill person in a lot of pain asks for a lethal dose of medication. "And the few times that request has been made, I told the patient, Sorry, given the law in New Mexico, I cannot do that."

It's a hard thing to say, he acknowledges, when someone is suffering immensely and there is no cure in sight. "We try and find as many other ways as we can to keep them comfortable." more

More On NM Push For A Fight Over Assisted Suicide

Here’s more on the developing pro-deather antics in New Mexico. Two doctors are pushing the legal side of things hoping to get an OK for assisted suicide via any route via the ballot box.

Doctors fight to prescribe lethal meds

Two New Mexico based doctors challenge a state statute that bans assisted suicide to determine if physicians can prescribe lethal medication to terminally-ill patients.

Physicians filed the lawsuit with the help the American Civil Liberties Union, better known as ACLU, Thursday morning. more

Assisted Suicide For New Mexico??

The pro-deathers keep at it, now making noises in New Mexico.

Assisted Suicide Judicial Fiat Sought in New Mexico

If New Mexico wants to legalize assisted suicide, it is free to so do. But it hasn’t, and so a lawsuit will be filed to impose it by judicial fiat, a tactical move that has failed previously in Connecticut, Florida, Alaska, and California, in front of the US Supreme Court, and muddied the waters in Montana.  From the Albuquerque Journal story: more