He also explained in Compassion & Choices Magazine that a patient’s right to die has “always been a very important thing to me.”
“I've just watched people suffer so badly when they died, and it goes on every day. You can just see it in their eyes: Why am I having to go through this terrible part of my life, when we do it for animals? We put them out of their misery,” reports World Net Daily.
"I just feel if we can do it for animals, we can do it for human beings,” Baxter argued.
The state attorney general’s office contended that taking a life intentionally is illegal and that any decisions regarding the issues are the responsibility of the state Legislature.
The AP reports that Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Anders argued that Montana currently lacks an evaluation process and regulations to provide guidance for physician-assisted suicide. She also pointed out that the terms “competent” and “terminally ill” have not been defined.
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The judge’s decision stated that doctors would both determine the competency of their patients and whether or not the patient is terminally ill.
An attorney who specializes in bioethics issues, Wesley J. Smith, told Life News that the decision was a broad ruling that “logically couldn’t be limited to physician assisted suicide or the terminally ill.”
Smith claimed that the judge “went further than somebody's right to commit suicide, which is an individual action. She declared that the person who wants to die has the right to help."