On May 22, 2025, Compassion & Choices filed McComas v. Polis, a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the residency requirement in Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act. The residency requirement prevents otherwise qualified terminally ill individuals from receiving an aid-in-dying prescription if they are not a Colorado resident. It further prevents providers from offering the same end-of-life options to non-residents as they can offer to Colorado residents.
On May 22, 2025, Compassion & Choices and co-counsel Hogan Lovells filed a lawsuit in a federal Colorado district court on behalf of a terminally ill Minnesota resident and two Colorado physicians challenging the constitutionality of the residency requirement in Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act.
Jeff McComas, a Minnesota resident who has been diagnosed with Stage IV intestinal cancer, would like the option to access medical aid in dying, which is not an option in his home state. Although the Colorado End-of-Life Options Act could offer him that choice, the law’s residency requirement currently prevents him from accessing it.
Dr. Barbara Morris, a Colorado physician and geriatrician, and Dr. Jennifer Harbert, a Colorado family medicine physician and hospice medical director, regularly treat individuals at the end of life and have previously written aid-in-dying prescriptions for qualified individuals. Both Dr. Morris and Dr. Harbert are prohibited from offering the same end-of-life care options to non-residents that they provide to residents, as they cannot help non-residents who would like to receive medical aid in dying without facing potential criminal or civil liability. Medical aid in dying is the only care option in their practice that they cannot offer to non-residents.
The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the Act’s residency requirement, and alleges that it violates the:
– The U.S. Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, which prohibits states from treating non-residents differently in ways that infringe on fundamental rights, such as the right to travel.
– The U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which prohibits state laws that discriminate against or unduly burden interstate commerce–including the provision of medical services.
– The U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, which protects individuals from being treated unfairly based on arbitrary or discriminatory classifications.
The lawsuit is the fourth of its kind brought by Compassion & Choices challenging residency requirements in medical aid-in-dying laws. Oregon and Vermont both reached a settlement with Compassion & Choices’ clients, agreeing to not enforce the residency requirement in their state laws. Both state legislatures ultimately removed the residency requirement from the bill’s language, allowing qualified out-of-state residents access to medical aid in dying. Litigation is ongoing in New Jersey regarding a challenge to the state’s residency requirement in its aid-in-dying law.
Washington, D.C. and six other states also have medical aid-in-dying laws with residency requirements: Washington, California, Hawai‘i, Maine, New Mexico, and Delaware.
Compassion & Choices is committed to ensuring all individuals have the full-range of options at the end of life, including medical aid in dying. To learn more about Compassion & Choices’ work to protect and expand medical aid in dying through the courts, please visit our Medical Aid in Dying Litigation page.
Note: We are not a general legal services provider. We focus on legal issues specifically related to end-of-life care and patient autonomy.
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