PHILADELPHIA - A man with months live to live is suing Pennsylvania, saying he wants to kill himself and bans against that prohibit anti-slavery laws.
Gordon Roy Parker filed a lawsuit June 3 in federal court, challenging the legal restrictions on medical aid in dying (MAID). The defendants include high-profile officials such as Pennsylvania Governor Joshua David Shapiro, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and others.
Parker, who says he is terminally ill with end-stage liver disease and other serious health conditions, argues that the current laws violate his constitutional rights under the First, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth amendments.
His suit notes The Netherlands recognizes the right to suicide and America's current stance toward it violates the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition against slavery.
"A person who is capable of ending his life on his own, instantly, has established the right to Medical Aid in Dying, as part of his general right to medical care, on a par with his right to be free of pain during medical procedures or in general," the suit says.
"Plaintiff is physically capable of ending his life without government interference in a matter of minutes, such as by the time-honored method in Philadelphia of jumping in front of the Market-Frankford Line at the City Hall Station, during the peak of rush hour, as many in his city have done since he moved there in 1986."
Parker seeks declaratory relief to establish suicide as a fundamental human right and to invalidate laws that restrict MAID. He also requests an injunction to allow him to commence the process of MAID immediately.
Parker is representing himself.