“A judge in New Mexico ruled Monday that terminally ill patients have the right to have doctors prescribe fatal drug doses to help them die, US media said.

The ruling Monday after a two-day trial would make New Mexico the fifth US state to adopt such a policy.

“This court cannot envision a right more fundamental, more private or more integral to the liberty, safety and happiness of a New Mexican than the right of a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying,” Judge Nan G. Nash of the Second District Court in Albuquerque wrote, according to the New York Times and other media.

The case was brought by two doctors who sought protection against prosecution if they provided fatal drug prescriptions to a patient, and Aja Riggs. She is a 49-year-old woman with cancer.”* The Young Turks hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian break it down.

*Read more here from Agence France-Presse / Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/14/new-mexico-judge-terminally-ill-patients-have-fundamental-right-to-choose-aid-in-dying/