Montana is a unique case: medical aid in dying is legally available, but not because of a statute passed by the legislature.
The general eligibility framework
- An adult (18 or older) with the capacity to make their own health care decisions
- Diagnosed with a terminal illness that, in the judgment of the attending physician and a second, independently consulting physician, is expected to result in death within six months
- Able to self-administer the prescribed medication — under every authorizing jurisdiction's law, the choice and the act must be the person's own, not performed by someone else on their behalf
- Required to make more than one request over time (typically both a spoken and a written request), often with a waiting period in between — though the exact number of days, and whether it can be shortened for someone very close to death, varies by state and has changed through recent legislation and litigation in several states
- In most authorizing states, required to be a current resident of that state — Oregon and Vermont are the notable exceptions, having removed their residency requirements after legal challenges
What's specific to Montana
In the 2009 case Baxter v. Montana, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that a terminally ill, mentally competent adult's consent to receive aid in dying gives a physician a legal defense against a homicide charge under existing state law. That's meaningfully different from the other jurisdictions on this list, which have detailed statutes spelling out waiting periods, reporting requirements, and standard forms. Montana has no comparable statewide regulatory framework or official reporting system, so the practical process — including what documentation a given hospital or physician requires — can vary more from one provider to the next. If you're in Montana, this is a case where talking directly with a physician experienced in end-of-life care, or a local elder-law attorney, matters more than it might in a state with a detailed statute.
For solo agers in particular, this is worth thinking through well before a crisis: the process typically unfolds over days or weeks, not in a single appointment, and usually involves your primary physician, a specialist confirming the diagnosis, and often a hospice or palliative care team. If you don't have a spouse or adult child nearby, make sure whoever holds your health care proxy and anyone on your care team knows your wishes ahead of time — and that your state-specific paperwork, once completed, is stored somewhere they can actually find it.