There’s no way to predict when or if California will offer what’s known in Oregon and Washington as Death with Dignity, or physician-assisted aid in dying, but I’ll keep you posted on a case in New Mexico that could have implications here.

In the New Mexico case, said Kathryn Tucker, legal affairs director for a nonprofit advocacy group called Compassion & Choices, “We hope to clarify … that a vague statute that makes a crime of ‘assisting suicide’ does not reach the conduct of a physician providing aid in dying, because of course the choice of a dying patient for a peaceful death is not, and ought not be conflated with, ‘suicide.’”

Tucker said the case in question involves a woman with advanced uterine cancer who has said she would like to have, as one option, the right to avoid prolonged suffering by obtaining doctor-prescribed medication she could ingest to bring about a peaceful death if she finds her dying process unbearable.

ucker said California’s statute on assisting a suicide is similarly vague, and if the New Mexico court rules in favor of allowing aid in dying, “it could have persuasive influence in California.”

To learn more about the legal and medical issues on this topic, go to www.compassionandchoices.org and check my video chat above with Tucker and Dr. Judy Neall Epstein, director of the End-of-Life Consultation Program at Compassion & Choices.