Federal Appeals court rejects lawsuit demanding expansion of New Jersay assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Nikita Biryukov reported for News From The States that a federal appeals court has upheld the right of New Jersey's right to limit assisted suicide to New Jersey residients.

The assisted suicide lobby launched a lawsuit on August 29, 2923 to force the state of New Jersey to drop its assisted suicide residency requirement. The lawsuit claimed that the New Jersey assisted suicide law is unconstitutional because it denies equal treatment.

Dana DiFilippo reported for the New Jersey Monitor on September 19, 2024 that U.S. District Court Judge Renée Marie Bumb upheld the New Jersey assisted suicide law residency requirement.

The assisted suicide lobby appealed Judge Bumb's decision and today a federal appeals court rejected the assisted suicide lobby's demand to force New Jersey to eliminate their assisted suicide residency requirement. Biryukov reported:

The three-judge U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled Friday that assisted suicide is not a fundamental privilege the state must extend to residents from other states. ... 

“A prescription lawful in Camden can be evidence of a felony in Philadelphia,” Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote for the panel. “If a New Jersey doctor prescribes a Pennsylvanian lethal pills and she swallows them back in Pennsylvania, the doctor might reasonably fear prosecution.”

The court further decided that:

“There is no longstanding tradition of doctor-assisted suicide. On the contrary, there is a centuries-long tradition against it,” Bibas wrote.

For the same reasons, the law does not violate the Constitution’s equal protections clause, the panel said.

New Jersey’s law “aims to keep both patients and pills in-state” to avoid exposing Garden State doctors to prosecution in other jurisdictions and avoid causing discord with states where assisted suicide is illegal, the court ruled.

In October 2021, the assisted suicide lobby group, Compassion and Choices, and Dr Nicholas Gideonse, an assisted suicide doctor, launched a court case challenging the Oregon assisted suicide residency requirement. Instead of defending the residency requirement, the Oregon Government, on March 29, 2022 agreed to remove the residency requirement.

A February 2023 article by James Reinl for the Daily Mail reported that Dr Nicholas Gideonse has opened the first assisted suicide clinic in Oregon to prescribe lethal assisted suicide drugs for death tourists. At least one person from Texas and an east coast resident has died by assisted suicide in Oregon.

In August, 2022, Compassion and Choices launched a lawsuit on behalf of a Connecticut woman and a Vermont doctor challenging Vermont's assisted suicide residency requirement.

Withdrawing the assisted suicide law residency requirement allows for assisted suicide tourism. Every American is currently eligible to die by assisted suicide in Oregon and Vermont.