N.M. lawmaker eyes ‘right to die’ bill after court loss

ALBUQUERQUE — A New Mexico state lawmaker is pushing for a law to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with help from doctors.

About a month after advocates for the practice suffered a court defeat, Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Las Cruces, discussed his proposal Tuesday before a Legislative committee in Albuquerque. The measure could launch a heated debate going into the next legislative session.

Five other states allow residents to end their lives legally with medication prescribed by a doctor.

McCamley said he was prompted to act after the New Mexico Supreme Court’s decision last month and because it is a personal fight for him. The Las Cruces lawmaker lost his father two years ago because of a debilitating neurological disease, he said, and he saw how his father suffered.

“This shouldn’t be the government’s call,” McCamley said. “It should be your call.”

Last month, the state’s high court refused to overturn a state law preventing doctors from ending the lives of terminally ill patients. The state’s aid-in-dying law classifies such an act as a fourth-degree felony.

The case involved a Santa Fe woman with advanced uterine cancer who wanted courts to clarify New Mexico’s laws preventing her from ending her life and putting doctors at risk.

In oral arguments, the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office said the final decision on the legality of the practice should be left to state lawmakers, not the courts.

After the court defeat, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, which launched the legal challenge in the state in 2012, vowed to take the fight to lawmakers.

McCamley says a task force on the bill will submit ideas crafting a piece of legislation that might gain support in the Democraticcontrolled Senate and the GOP-led House.

Michael Lonergan, a spokesman for New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, said the governor “opposes assisted suicide.”