SOURCE Institute for Patients' Rights

Plaintiffs raise concerns about assisted suicide for patients with non-terminal conditions including eating disorders and spinal cord injuries

DENVER, June 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A coalition of national and Colorado-based disability and patient advocacy organizations and an individual with anorexia has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Colorado's End of Life Options Act, which establishes assisted suicide in the state. They allege that the law violates core constitutional protections and federal civil rights statutes, including the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. 

Rather than support and care, the state is steering vulnerable patients who could otherwise live to death by suicide.

The plaintiffs - Atlantis ADAPT, United Spinal, Not Dead Yet, Institute for Patients' Rights, and Mary Gossman, an individual plaintiff and anorexia patient - are asking the U.S. District Court to declare the law unconstitutional and to block its enforcement permanently. The suit argues that Colorado's assisted suicide statute singles out people with disabilities and other vulnerable individuals, placing them at risk of premature death rather than ensuring access to care, support and suicide prevention services. 

"Assisted suicide laws like Colorado's create a separate and unequal system in which people with disabilities are offered death instead of support," said Matt Vallière, president/executive director of the plaintiff organization Institute for Patients' Rights. "This lawsuit is about affirming that every person's life has value, regardless of age, ability, or diagnosis, and that no one should be treated as disposable under the law." 

The suit highlights alarming consequences of the law's implementation, including its application to individuals with non-terminal conditions like anorexia, spinal cord injuries, and other disabilities that may bias health care providers. Plaintiffs contend that the state discriminates against people with disabilities by offering lethal drugs for the purpose of suicide rather than directing them toward suicide prevention and recovery. 

"Colorado's EOLOA purports to be only for 'terminal' illness, but it is regularly applied to patients with treatable conditions such as anorexia-conditions where full recovery is often possible with proper intervention," said Michael W. Bien, co-founding partner of Rosen, Bien, Galvan and Grunfeld LLP and legal counsel for the plaintiffs in the case. "Rather than offering suicide prevention and robust mental health care, the state is steering vulnerable patients who could otherwise live to death by suicide."

Advocates argue that the law sets a dangerous precedent by allowing physicians to make life-or-death judgments in cases where outcomes are uncertain. For individuals with anorexia and similar diagnoses, treatment success cannot be predicted, and labeling these patients as "terminal," hopeless, and beyond help denies them the opportunity for healing. 

"Rather than continue the decades-long policy of viewing suicide as a tragedy deserving of society's intervention and prevention efforts, legalizing assisted suicide instead bifurcates policy into the Haves and Have Nots and deems suicide rational, just because a person has a disability," said Ian McIntosh, interim executive director of plaintiff organization Not Dead Yet, a national grassroots disability rights group opposing the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. "The Haves get suicide prevention. The Have Nots – people with disabilities – get suicide assistance." 

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