The Details:

New Mexico's 2025 Annual Data Report has been released and shows that 170 lethal prescriptions were issued. Only three of those people did not take the fatal drugs.

This was a decrease from 2023, in which 213 people were given assisted suicide prescriptions; altogether, since being legalized, 723 people have received the prescriptions. Interestingly, only 26 health care providers across the entire state prescribed the assisted suicide medication in 2025.

The report does not confirm that the conditions required under law were met, or how many people traveled from out of state into New Mexico to die. The vast majority were elderly, had been diagnosed with cancer, and were receiving hospice care.

The Backstory:

Legislation to allow assisted suicide in New Mexico was introduced in 2019, and it was immediately controversial. It allowed non-physicians to prescribe assisted suicide drugs, did not require a specific prognosis, and required providers to lie on the death certificate. So if a woman with, say, lung cancer underwent assisted suicide, the death certificate would have to say lung cancer, rather than her actual cause of death: assisted suicide. There were very few safeguards put in place, and it still allowed for assisted suicide tourism, as well as for people with mental illness to qualify.

At the time, it was described as one of the worst pro-assisted suicide laws in the nation.

Assisted suicide was ultimately legalized in 2021 in New Mexico and has just five requirements. In addition to being a legal adult, the person must have:

• The capacity to make an informed health care decision

• A terminal illness with a life expectancy of six months or less

• Voluntarily requested medical aid-in-dying

• The ability to self-administer medical aid-in-dying medication

The law initially required health care providers to give information to patients about assisted suicide, a blatant violation of conscience protections. Christian health care providers sued, and in 2023, the law was amended to clarify that providers would “not be subject to criminal liability, licensing sanctions or other professional disciplinary action” for “refusing, for reasons of conscience, to participate in medical aid in dying in any way, which includes refusing to provide information on medical aid in dying to a patient and refusing to refer a patient to any entity or individual who is able and willing to assist the patient in obtaining medical aid in dying.”

This was a decrease from 2023, in which 213 people were given assisted suicide prescriptions; altogether, since being legalized, 723 people have received the prescriptions. Interestingly, only 26 health care providers across the entire state prescribed the assisted suicide medication in 2025.

The report does not confirm that the conditions required under law were met, or how many people traveled from out of state into New Mexico to die. The vast majority were elderly, had been diagnosed with cancer, and were receiving hospice care.

The Backstory:

Legislation to allow assisted suicide in New Mexico was introduced in 2019, and it was immediately controversial. It allowed non-physicians to prescribe assisted suicide drugs, did not require a specific prognosis, and required providers to lie on the death certificate. So if a woman with, say, lung cancer underwent assisted suicide, the death certificate would have to say lung cancer, rather than her actual cause of death: assisted suicide. There were very few safeguards put in place, and it still allowed for assisted suicide tourism, as well as for people with mental illness to qualify.

At the time, it was described as one of the worst pro-assisted suicide laws in the nation.

Assisted suicide was ultimately legalized in 2021 in New Mexico and has just five requirements. In addition to being a legal adult, the person must have:

• The capacity to make an informed health care decision

• A terminal illness with a life expectancy of six months or less

• Voluntarily requested medical aid-in-dying

• The ability to self-administer medical aid-in-dying medication

The law initially required health care providers to give information to patients about assisted suicide, a blatant violation of conscience protections. Christian health care providers sued, and in 2023, the law was amended to clarify that providers would “not be subject to criminal liability, licensing sanctions or other professional disciplinary action” for “refusing, for reasons of conscience, to participate in medical aid in dying in any way, which includes refusing to provide information on medical aid in dying to a patient and refusing to refer a patient to any entity or individual who is able and willing to assist the patient in obtaining medical aid in dying.”