Residency requirement to remain in New Jersey’s assisted suicide law, judge rules

Advocates had challenged the constitutionality of a residency requirement in New Jersey's Medical Aid in Dying Act for the Terminally Ill Act. A judge has tossed the case. (Getty Images)

A federal judge has refused to strike down the residency requirement in New Jersey’s physician-assisted suicide law, a court loss advocates declared “a temporary roadblock.”

U.S. District Court Judge Renée Marie Bumb on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by two terminally ill women from Pennsylvania and Delaware, rejecting their claim that the residency requirement in New Jersey’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act is unconstitutional.

Compassion & Choices, the Colorado-based nonprofit that advocates for access to medical aid-in-dying, sued the state in August 2023 on behalf of Judith Govatos, a Wilmington, Delaware, resident with stage-4 lymphoma; Andy Sealy, a Philadelphia resident with metastatic breast cancer; and two New Jersey doctors. They argued that restricting the law to New Jersey residents violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment.

But Bumb did not agree and refused their request that she block enforcement of the residency provision.

“The residence requirement makes sense: While medical aid in dying is permitted in New Jersey, it is indistinguishable from the criminal act of assisted suicide in neighboring states,” Bumb wrote. “By limiting the pool of eligible patients to State residents, the requirement is rationally related to the legitimate objective of protecting from out-of-state liability providers and advocates who assist terminally ill patients in seeking medical aid in dying.”

The act, enacted in 2019, allows terminally ill, hospice-eligible, mentally capable adults to obtain self-administered, life-ending prescription medication. Almost 300 people were approved from 2019 through 2023 under the law to end their lives by self-administering prescribed medication, state data shows.

Govatos, 79, called the ruling “a denial of compassion.” Sealy died last month.

“I don’t want to die fearfully. I want to die affirming that I’ve had this opportunity to be alive in this amazing world and to say goodbye and I love you to my family and friends,” Govatos said in a statement.

Attorney David B. Bassett represented the plaintiffs.

“We are confident that this decision is merely a temporary roadblock to ensuring access to medical aid in dying for all Americans,” Bassett said in a statement.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the ruling.

The lawsuit was the third nationally to challenge the residency requirement for a medical aid-in-dying law, according to Compassion & Choices. Nine states and Washington, D.C., passed such laws with residency requirements, but two — Oregon and Vermont — removed residency restrictions after court challenges, the group said.

Compassion & Choices has also lobbied states to remove a 15-day waiting period after patients’ initial requests for life-ending medication, saying the wait — meant as a safeguard — has become a barrier. A bill to abolish that provision in New Jersey’s law has been introduced twice since 2022 but remains stalled.

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