SANTA FE — A New Mexico aid-in-dying law that’s been targeted by a federal lawsuit would be updated to clarify that doctors with conscientious objections can refuse to help patients seeking to use the law, under a bill approved Thursday by the state Senate.
The Senate voted 38-0 in favor of the legislation, Senate Bill 471, that would add the conscience language into the End-of-Life Options Act that allows terminally ill New Mexicans to seek a doctor’s help to end their life by prescribing lethal medication.
“This is simply an acknowledgement of conscience and the right to exercise that conscience” when it comes to participating in the law, said Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, during Thursday’s debate.
He also said he believed the proposed language addition would address the concerns raised in the lawsuit, though he said he had not spoken directly to attorneys in the case.
A local physician and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, a Tennessee-based nonprofit group, filed a lawsuit in federal court in December, alleging the state’s aid-in-dying law violates the First Amendment rights of doctors.
No rulings have been issued since the lawsuit was filed, according to court records.
The End-of-Life Options Act was passed by the Legislature in 2021 and named after Elizabeth Whitefield, a retired judge who advocated for the legislation but died of cancer in 2018 — three years before it was approved.
More than 130 people in New Mexico took life-ending medication in 2022, the first full year it was in place, according to state records.
As originally drafted, the law stipulates that health care providers who object as a matter of conscience cannot be required to participate in prescribing life-ending medication to a patient. It also prohibits disciplining a provider for a refusal to participate.
But the lawsuit filed contends those protections aren’t strong enough, while specifically citing a provision that says a provider who isn’t willing to carry out a patient’s end-of-life request must refer them to someone else who can help.
Sen. Gregg Schmedes, R-Tijeras, a doctor who voted against the 2021 bill, said the proposed revision to the existing law shows lawmakers should be more cautious about conscience exemptions for medical professionals, for both religious and non-religious reasons.
He and other Republican legislators pushed unsuccessfully for such language to be left intact when lawmakers repealed a long-dormant state abortion ban two years ago.
“We need to be very sensitive to those issues,” Schmedes said during Thursday’s debate.
The measure now advances to the House with just over one week left in this year’s 60-day legislative session.
