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...Aid in dying (trợ tử) remains illegal in Delaware, despite repeated legislative attempts to pass a bill permitting it. Since 2019, however, it has been legal in neighboring New Jersey, a half-hour drive from Ms. Govatos’s home.

But New Jersey restricts aid in dying to terminally ill (bị bệnh nan y) residents of its own state. Ms. Govatos was more than willing, therefore, to become one of four plaintiffs — two patients, two doctors — taking New Jersey officials to federal court (tòa án liên bang).

The lawsuit, filed last month, argues that New Jersey’s residency requirement violates the Constitution’s privileges (đặc quyền) and immunities clause and its equal protection clause (điều khoản bảo vệ bình đẳng).

“The statute prohibits New Jersey physicians (bác sĩ) from providing equal care to their non-New Jersey resident patients,” said David Bassett, a lawyer (luật sư) with the New York firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, which brought the suit with the advocacy group Compassion & Choices.

“There’s no justification that anyone has articulated” for such discrimination, he added. The suit also contends that forbidding New Jersey doctors to offer aid-in-dying care to out-of-state patients (bệnh nhân) restricts interstate commerce, the province of Congress.