The suit was brought by Robert Baxter, 75, a retired truck driver from Billings who suffers from lymphocytic leukemia; and Steven Stoelb, 53, a former logger and forest technician from Livingston who has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disease caused by a defect in the body's ability to produce collagen.
They were joined by four Missoula physicians who treat terminally ill patients - Stephen Speckart, C. Paul Loehnen, Lar Autio and George Risi Jr. - and a nonprofit patients' rights organization.
Under current Montana law, it is a crime to help someone even try to commit suicide. If an assisted suicide attempt is successful, a person can be charged with murder. If an attempt fails, a person can be charged with aiding or soliciting suicide, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Thursday in District Court in Lewis and Clark County said they are seeking "declaratory judgment and injunctive relief to prevent the application of Montana's criminal homicide statues against physicians who wish to help their patients achieve a peaceful and humane death by providing aid in dying assistance."
The state attorney general's office had not had a chance to review the lawsuit and declined immediate comment, agency spokeswoman Lynn Solomon said.
The plaintiffs argue the state constitution provides "unusually strong protections" for the rights of Montana residents to individual dignity and privacy, according to a statement by plaintiff Compassion and Choices, a patient advocacy group.
"These guarantees protect the right of such patients to control their own death by obtaining medications from their physician to enable the patient to achieve a peaceful death, if they so choose," the statement said.
Baxter and Stoelb are represented by Mark S. Connell, a Missoula attorney, and Kathryn Tucker, legal affairs director for Compassion and Choices.
Connell said the focus of the case is the rights of Montana patients and doctors in deciding "what amounts to the most profound and personal decision any of us will face, and that is how we will die.
"The key question is, who will decide that? Patients with the consultation of doctors? Or the government?'" he said. "We're seeking clarification and declaration of what Montana law is on these points."
According to the lawsuit, Baxter and Stoelb both suffer from conditions for which this is no cure and have a variety of symptoms that will worsen over time.
They are "approaching the end of their lives and have no reasonable prospect of recovery," the lawsuit said. "As their respective diseases take their toll, they face the progressive, inexorable erosion of bodily function and integrity, increasing pain and suffering and the loss of personal dignity which is the hallmark of human life."
If their suffering should become unbearable, the men want to be able to hasten their deaths legally and die in a "peaceful and dignified manner," the lawsuit said.
On the Net: Compassion and Choices, http://www.compassionandchoices.org/
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