The Murphy administration is facing a lawsuit that could bring medical aid and dying options to millions of more people.

An advocacy organization that works on behalf of terminally ill patients is asking the state to drop its residency requirement.

It was put in place in 2019 when New Jersey enacted the so called right to die law, arguing New Jersey is now a haven for people seeking abortion services and should offer the same grace to critically ill patients who want to end life on their own terms.

Senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has the story.

I want to die the way I've lived and I've tried to live lovingly.

Judy Govatos lives happily in Wilmington, Delaware, but she wants New Jersey to help her die.

Although the 79 year old beaten cancer twice, she expects it to return.

And Govatos hopes to leave this life with a peaceful, medically assisted death.

Not more rounds of chemo.

The idea of being in hospice for weeks hallucinating and vomiting is a pretty it's a pretty dreadful prospect.

I don't.

I choose not to go through that again because it will take too much of my life away.

Medical aid in dying legal in ten states.

However, they don't include Delaware.

And while New Jersey passed a law in 2019 permitting doctors to prescribe a painless but lethal drug mixture for terminally ill people, it's restricted to Jersey residents only.

New Jersey law can't help Judy die.

It's like I'm stuck.

20 minutes away and all I need to do is get in a car and drive and see the doctor take the medication and have my family be with me.

Dear God.

And it seems really cruel to deny someone that that sense of calm, that sense of knowing that they're not going to suffer needlessly at the end of life.

Kevin Diaz is with Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group that filed a federal lawsuit against New Jersey on behalf of Govatos, a woman from Philadelphia, and two Jersey doctors with out-of-state patients arguing it violates their constitutional rights.

It discriminates against them and we have been unable to find any other medical practice that is barred to nonresidents.

And a lot of these patients don't have that time left in their in their life.

A lot of them can't don't have the resources to move from New Jersey.

Dr. Deborah Pasik is one of the plaintiffs, she's helped 180 New Jerseyans with medically assisted death since 2019.

Patients must observe stringent rules and a 15 day waiting period.

But out-of-staters face even more hurdles.

They have to become a state resident and they have to provide me with proof of state residency, usually in the form of a driver's license or a voter registration card.

New Jersey collects data and reported 91 people used medical aid in dying last year.

That's less than 1% of deaths.

But some fear dropping state residency requirements in this densely populated region could invite a lot more cases.

So certainly we think that there are going to be people that are going to New Jersey from other states so they don't have to worry about what's to come.

And what we find is that there are about a third of the people who actually get the medication ultimately don't take it.

Among states with medical aid in dying laws, both Oregon and Vermont eliminated residency requirements this year after facing similar lawsuits from compassion and choices.

Neither have reported a spike in cases yet.

Judy says she hopes New Jersey also settles soon.

I want quality of life, not quantity of life at this point.

She'll go to Vermont if necessary.

New Jersey's attorney general had no comment.

I'm Brenda Flanagan, NJ.

Spotlight News.