Montana Court Decides Terminally Ill Patients Have Right To Death With Dignity Under Montana Constitution

Main Category: Palliative Care / Hospice Care
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 08 Dec 2008 - 4:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Montana's First Judicial Court today issued a landmark decision in a lawsuit brought by a terminally ill Montana man, four Montana physicians and Compassion & Choices, a national nonprofit organization advocating for better care and choices at the end of life. Judge Dorothy McCarter held that mentally competent terminally ill Montanans have a right to a dignified death protected by the Montana Constitution's guarantees of privacy and individual dignity. Accordingly, plaintiff Robert Baxter has the right to obtain medications he can self-administer to bring about a peaceful death, if he finds his suffering intolerable. The physician plaintiffs can write prescriptions for their mentally competent terminally ill patients who want to control the time and manner of their deaths without the fear of criminal prosecution.

"I value my independence and dignity, as do all Montanans," said Baxter, a 75-year-old retired truck driver. "I have lived an independent life. Now, I am dying of cancer. It's a horrible disease. I am glad to know that the court respects my choice to die with dignity if my situation becomes intolerable. It comforts me to know that my doctor can prescribe medications that I can take to bring about a peaceful death, that I can gather my loved ones and die with dignity in my own home. This is my personal choice, based on my values and beliefs."

Compassion & Choices Legal Director Kathryn Tucker, lead counsel in the two federal cases asserting a right of this nature under the U.S. Constitution, teamed with Montana litigator, Mark Connell, in arguing for Bob Baxter and the physicians. "This ruling is consistent with a long line of cases recognizing that Montana's Constitution protects the decision-making power of its citizens in the most intimate and personal areas of their lives," said Tucker. "The court found that the decision of a dying patient whether to endure further suffering or, instead, to cut such suffering short, is an intensely personal, private decision which must be reserved to the individual."

"On behalf of Bob Baxter, Steve Stoelb and the four doctors we represent, we are very grateful for the courts recognition that terminally ill Montanans have the right to determine their own destinies with respect to these difficult end-of-life choices," said Connell. "The court has found that it is the individual patients who should be entitled to make these critical decisions for themselves and their families, and not the government. Our state constitutions rights of privacy and individual dignity compel this result, and the courts ruling is consistent with Montanan's view of the limited role the state should play in such matters."

Barbara Coombs Lee, C & C's President noted, "Montana now becomes the 3rd state in which aid in dying is affirmatively legal. Oregon has had its Death with Dignity Act in effect for more than a decade; Washington voters approved a similar law in the November election. We are at a tipping point in expanding choice at the end of life to include aid in dying."

Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life. As a national organization with over 60 local groups and 30,000 members, we help patients and their loved ones face the end of life with calm facts and choices of action during a difficult time. We also aggressively pursue legal reform to promote pain care, put teeth in advance directives and legalize physician aid in dying.

For more information please visit www.compassionandchoices.org.

• Additional
• References
• Citations