Brief Amicus Curiae in Robert Baxter versus State of Montana.

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Brief Amicus Curiae in Robert Baxter versus State of Montana.

In its ruling in Baxter v. Montana, (1) the District Court ruled that physicians who assist patients' suicides are protected from liability under the State's homicide statute. (2) The Court mistakenly relied on Oregon as a laboratory in which legalized assisted suicide has been tested and its results scrutinized. The lack of transparency in implementation of Oregon's "Death with Dignity Act" (3) renders Oregon an unreliable laboratory for assessing its social, economic and medical experiment with assisted suicide. The Oregon law's requirements, often referred to as safeguards, give a false impression of patient protection.

The District Court failed to address the context in which assisted suicide would be carried out in Montana. The State already has the highest suicide rate in the nation, twice the national average. (4) So dire is the State's suicide rate that the legislature spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on suicide prevention programs. (5)

Montana's health care system, like that in all states, is under strain, setting the stage for assisted suicide becoming an acceptable, inexpensive method of health care cost containment. Furthermore, legalized assisted suicide can mask patient abuse and elder abuse.

Removing the time-tested barriers that protect patients by giving doctors the power to prescribe lethal drugs does not enhance patient privacy and dignity. Instead, it subjects patients to dangers that are uncontrollable and untraceable.

Argument

I. Lack of Tran...

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