A state district court judge ruled yesterday that patients have a right to doctor-assisted suicide.
Montana's First District Court Judge Dorothy McCarter, the Associated Press reports, declared in the case of Baxter et al. v. Montana that mentally competent, terminally ill Montanans may self-administer life-ending medication and that doctors who prescribe such medications need not fear criminal prosecution.
Robert Baxter, 75, a retired truck driver from Billings who suffers from lymphocytic leukemia, filed the lawsuit along with four physicians in the state's district court system on Nov. 1, 2007. They were aided in the case by the assisted suicide advocacy group Compassion & Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society....