Suit claims New York's ban on assisted suicide doesn't apply to doctors
A lawsuit filed on Wednesday claims New York’s ban on assisted suicides doesn’t apply to doctors who help terminally ill patients end their lives.
Among the plaintiffs are three doctors who lost a constitutional challenge to the New York assisted-suicide ban in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997, Reuters reports. Another plaintiff is 81-year-old cancer patient Eric Seiff, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
The New York Times had a preview of the suit (PDF), which seeks a declaratory judgment that the state law banning assisted suicides does not bar physicians from helping mentally competent patients with terminal illnesses who want a peaceful death. A press release is here.
If the law is construed to apply to physicians in such circumstances, the suit says, the law violates equal protection and due process protections in the state constitution.
Lawyers from the Disability Rights Center and Debevoise & Plimpton filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs.
