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Friday, October 11, 2019

Dying is a Moral Event. NJ Law Caught Up With Morality

T. Patrick Hill
Star-Ledge Guest Column
Originally posted September 9, 2019

New Jersey’s Medical-Aid-in-Dying legislation authorizes physicians to issue a prescription to end the lives of their patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, are expected to die within six months, and have requested their physicians to help them do so. While the legislation does not require physicians to issue the prescription, it does require them to transfer a patient’s medical records to another physician who has agreed to prescribe the lethal medication.

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The Medical Aid in Dying Act goes even further, concluding that its passage serves the public’s interests, even as it endorses the “right of a qualified terminally ill patient …to obtain medication that the patient may choose to self-administer in order to bring about the patient’s humane and dignified death.”

The info is here.