New Mexico Attorney General Gary King is appealing a court ruling that terminally ill patients can seek a physician's help in dying.
King tells the Albuquerque Journal that one of the problems with District Judge Jan Nash's January ruling is that it doesn't apply statewide.
King also says he wants to protect the assisted suicide law. That law classifies helping with suicide as a felony.
The case centers on Aja Riggs, a Santa Fe resident who was diagnosed with an aggressive uterine cancer. Her cancer is in remission, but doctors expect it to return.
Nash ruled that terminally ill patients have the right to aid in dying, and that "such deaths are not considered 'suicide' under the assisted suicide law.
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