The state’s medical aid in dying law “legalizes murder,” and no doctor in New Jersey should be required to do anything to help carry it out, including the routine act of releasing a patient’s file, an attorney for a devoutly religious physician and a pharmacist argued in court Monday…
The law violates the constitutional right of patients “to defend and enjoy life” and “the state’s obligation to preserve life,” the doctor’s Attorney E. David Smith said.
Glassman, “a healer, wants the state stand up for his patients,” but the law “throws the entire practice of medicine on its head,” Smith said…
Innes also grilled the state’s attorney, pointing out how the aid in dying law contradicts the law creating advance directives, a record of a sick person’s wishes should they not be able to speak for themselves. The preamble to this law references the “societal interests in the preservation of life” and preventing individuals from “self-destruction motivated by a specific intent to die.”