Physician-assisted suicide is now legal in Montana along with other US states Washington and Oregon. The Supreme Court in Montana has passed a law in this regard.

Now, medical practitioners without fear can prescribe necessary drugs to the terminally-ill patients.

The court commanded that the patients may use doctor’s prescription and the doctor would be protected from prosecution under Montana’s homicide laws.

Robert Baxter filed the case which led to this ruling. The man was a retired truck driver who was terminally ill with leukemia. Baxter sought a lethal dose of medication prescribed by his doctors. Baxter died before the decision was made by the court.

Montana law “explicitly shields physicians from liability for acting in accordance with a patient’s end-of life wishes, even if the physician must actively pull the plug on a patient’s ventilator or withhold treatment that will keep him alive”, according to the ruling.