My lede:

Two New England physicians are taking on a state law they argue interferes with their ability to prescribe life-ending doses of medication to terminally ill patients who request it.

Gary Blick, MD, an HIV/AIDS specialist in Norwalk, Conn., and Ronald M. Levine, MD, an internist in Greenwich, Conn., in October filed a legal challenge to the state’s assisted-suicide statute, saying the threat of punishment prevents them from prescribing lethal doses of medication.

Dr. Blick said that since he started practicing in 1987, he has received numerous requests for lethal prescriptions from terminally ill patients with “agonizing pain” and poor quality of life. “I always tell them I can’t do that — I could be tried for manslaughter.”

The whole shebang.