Colorado assisted suicide expansion court case lacks standing.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On May 22, 2025 the assisted suicide lobby filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Jeff McComas and two Colorado physicians challenging the state assisted suicide law residency requirement.

The complaint argued that the Colorado assisted suicide law residency requirement violates the U.S. Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause which “prohibits State officials from restricting non-resident visitors’ access to medical care within its borders absent a substantial State interest and restrictions narrowly tailored to those interests.”

Michael Karlik reported for Coloradopolitics on September 22 that:

A federal judge on Friday asked those challenging a provision of Colorado’s aid-in-dying law to reconsider whether they want to continue litigating, after a key plaintiff died earlier this month.

Jeff McComas from Minnesota, died on September 8 and the other two plaintiffs are doctors who are willing to participate in assisted suicide but they lack standing in the case that is based on out-of-state residents seeking to die by assisted suicide in Colorado.

Karlik reported U.S. District Court Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson as writing:

“the Court wonders if this is the best case to challenge the Colorado statute. Please give this more thought and conferral, as the Court does not wish for the parties to waste their time and resources, or the Court’s, if there is no standing.”

This is not a victory but rather a set-back for the assisted suicide lobby who want to expand assisted suicide nationally by eliminating state assisted suicide residency requirements.

The assisted suicide lobby made the same arguments in Oregon, Vermont and New Jersey. Oregon and Vermont subsequently removed their state assisted suicide law residency requirement whereas New Jersey successfully defended their state assisted suicide law residency requirement in court.

Assisted suicide is not medical treatment or care therefore the Privileges and Immunities Clause does not apply to assisted suicide.

Colorado legalized assisted suicide by passing Proposition 106 during the November 2016 election. In 2024, Colorado passed Senate Bill 24-068 expanding their assisted suicide law by:

• allowing advanced practice registered nurses to approve and prescribe lethal poison,
• reducing the waiting period from 15 days to 7 days, and
• allowing doctors or advanced practise registered nurse to waive the waiting period if the person is near to death.

The original version of SB 24-068 allowed non-residents to die by assisted suicide in Colorado but this amendment was rejected by legislators. 

The 2024 Colorado assisted suicide report indicated that there were 510 lethal poison prescriptions written in 2024 which was up by 28% from 398 in 2023. 18 of the lethal poison prescriptions were based on the person having an eating disorder.