Vacco v. Quill

The three physicians claimed that New York State law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since terminally ill patients receiving life-prolonging treatment could choose to die by ending said treatment, while others, who desired to end their lives but were not receiving life- prolonging treatment, could not choose to end their lives with medical assistance. The district court denied the physicians' claim, and the case proceeded to the court of appeals.

The court of appeals reversed the decision of the district court, stating that "New York law does not treat equally all competent persons who are in the final stages of fatal illness and wish to hasten their death." In the court's view, this unequal treatment resulted because "those in the final stages of a terminal illness who are on life support systems are allowed to hasten their deaths by directing the removal of such systems; but those who are similarly situated, except for the previous attachment of life sustaining equipment, are not allowed to hasten death by self administering prescribed drugs." In other words, the court ruled that the removal of life support and suicide were nearly exactly equivalent. Following this setback the state of New York asked the U.S. Supreme Court to accept the case on certiorari, and the Court heard arguments on 8 January 1997.