Delaware resident Judy Govatos has appealed a federal judge’s ruling that found the law’s residency requirement was a reasonable safeguard. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
A Delaware woman filed an appeal Thursday seeking to overturn a lower court judge’s dismissal of a suit challenging the residency requirement in New Jersey’s physician-assisted suicide law.
Judy Govatos, an 80-year old Delaware resident who twice entered remission after being treated for late-stage lymphoma, asked the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to reexamine District Court Judge Renée Marie Bumb’s dismissal of her constitutional challenge to the law’s residency requirement.
“I remain hopeful that the appeals court will recognize the importance of respecting my right to self-determination, regardless of where I live,” Govatos said in a statement. “Medical aid in dying is not about giving up on life but about ensuring that my final days are defined by peace without needless suffering.”
The 2019 law allows terminally ill New Jersey adults to be prescribed self-administered medication to end their lives.
As more terminally ill people use the N.J. aid-in-dying law, calls grow for expanded access
Before the District Court, Govatos and Andy Sealy, a Philadelphia resident diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer who has since died, argued that restricting life-ending medication to New Jersey residents violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee to equal treatment. New Jersey-based Dr. Paul Bryman is also a plaintiff.
Bumb in September dismissed the suit, finding the residency requirement is key to shielding New Jersey physicians from criminal liability in other states.
“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 in the September ruling.
The Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner reported 287 New Jersey residents died through the program between when it went into effect in August 2019 and the end of 2023.
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