HELENA - A judge here on Wednesday dismissed a request to freeze her own decision upholding Montana's right to physician-assisted suicide until the state's Supreme Court rules on the matter.
The decision means that "as of today" Montanans have the right to physician-assisted suicide, said Stephen Hopcraft, a spokesman for Compassion & Choices, a national end-of-life choice group that worked with a now-deceased Billings man who sought to end his life with physician help while battling terminal leukemia.
Helena District Judge Dorothy McCarter ruled in December that the Montana Constitution guarantees both a right to privacy and to human dignity, which includes the right of terminally ill citizens to choose to end their lives with a doctor's help.
The case has been appealed to the Montana Supreme Court. Former Attorney General Mike McGrath asked McCarter several weeks ago to delay the effect of her ruling until the high court rules on the matter.
McCarter on Wednesday dismissed the request.
The case deals with Robert Baxter, a terminally ill Billings man, who sought to end his life. Baxter died the same day McCarter ruled in his favor, before learning the outcome of the case.
McGrath has since been sworn in as chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court. He has pledged to recuse himself from the case.
The issue could be a lightning rod at the 2009 Legislature, which convened here this week. Rep. Dick Barrett, D-Missoula, is proposing a would-be law to enshrine McCarter's decision and to better define how physician-assisted suicide would work.
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