Vacco v. Quill
Next, the case was appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  It reversed the District Court's opinion. The Court of Appeals said that the law did not treat all competent patients equally when they wanted to end their lives.  For example, if a patient were attached to a life support machine, like a ventilator, they had the right to have a doctor disconnect it.  This would cause their death.  However, a person in the same situation, on a life support machine, could not ask a doctor to give them medications to cause their death instead.  The Court agreed that asking doctors to remove life support devices (which was legal) was the same as physician-assisted euthanasia (which was not legal).  They ruled that this was not equal treatment, and that New York's law against physician-assisted suicide was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause.