Medical aid in dying was enacted in New Jersey on August 1, 2019.
On January 9, 2024, Assemblymember Herb Conaway introduced Bill A1880, which waives or reduces the waiting period between requests if the person is not expected to survive that time frame. The bill was referred to the Assembly Health Committee. A summary of the bill can be found here.
Threats to the law: A407, aimed at repealing the Medical Aid in Dying Act and A406, which makes it a crime of the first degree to coerce a patient to request medical aid in dying or forge a patient’s request for medical aid in dying were both introduced this session but neither have moved in committee.
New Jersey Death with Dignity is a 501c3 organization that provides services, education, and end-of-life advocacy
By more than a 2-to-one margin (63% to 29%) of New Jersey residents feel that allowing doctors to legally prescribe lethal drugs to help terminally ill patients end their own lives should be an end-of-life option in the state. See more polling data.
Compassion & Choices agradece a la Corte Suprema de Nueva Jersey por rechazar una apelación de un fallo del Tribunal Estatal de Apelaciones emitido en junio del 2022, que afirma la desestimación de una demanda que busca revocar la ley de ayuda médica para morir estatal del 2019. La ley de Nueva Jersey permite a los adultos […]
Ruling ends five-year legal battle that briefly suspended law in 2019, harming dying patients. Compassion & Choices appreciates the New Jersey Supreme Court for rejecting an appeal of a state Appellate Court ruling issued in June 2022 affirming the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s 2019 medical aid-in-dying law. The New Jersey law allows […]
Compassion & Choices filed a federal lawsuit August 29 on behalf of cancer patients in Delaware and Pennsylvania and two New Jersey doctors asserting the residency mandate in New Jersey’s medical aid-in-dying law violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment. The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey, to prohibit state […]
Compassion & Choices presentó el martes por la tarde una demanda federal en nombre de pacientes de Delaware y Pensilvania que padecen cáncer y asimismo, en nombre de dos médicos de Nueva Jersey, afirmando que el mandato de residencia de la ley de ayuda médica para morir de Nueva Jersey viola la garantía de igualdad […]
Compassion & Choices filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday afternoon on behalf of cancer patients in Delaware and Pennsylvania and two New Jersey doctors asserting the residency mandate in New Jersey’s medical aid-in-dying law violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment. The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey, to prohibit state […]
Plaintiffs’ Last Legal Option Is to Appeal Ruling to Supreme Court Compassion & Choices praised the New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Court for a ruling on Friday affirming the lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s 2019 medical aid-in-dying law based on constitutional and religious objections. Compassion & Choices submitted an amicus brief in the […]
The New Jersey Department of Health has released a report showing 50 state residents received prescriptions authorized by the state’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act, and 45 people took the medication, representing .06% of the state’s total deaths of 84,072 people in 2021. In comparison, 33 terminally ill New Jersey residents received prescriptions for medical […]
Tony Award-winning actor James Naughton is commemorating this week’s 2nd anniversary of New Jersey’s medical aid-in-dying law by narrating a public service announcement for Compassion & Choices’ digital video and social media campaign to educate state residents about the law. New Jersey’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act took effect on Aug. 1, 2019. […]
The New Jersey Department of Health has published a report showing that 33 terminally ill residents in 16 counties used the state’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act to peacefully end their suffering in 2020. Of those who utilized the law in 2020, 94% were white, 73% had cancer and 15% had […]
An excerpt from the NJ.com article, “33 terminally ill people in N.J. ended their lives by using the Aid in Dying law last year,” by Susan K. Livio, published May 17, 2021: “Most had graduated college, gotten married and were suffering through the final stage of cancer. Nearly all chose to die at home. […]
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