ALBANY – New York's highest court rejected the argument Thursday that mentally competent, terminally ill patients have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, upholding lower court rulings.

The plaintiffs in the case,Myers v. Schneiderman, 77, had asked the Court of Appeals to declare a constitutional right to so-called aid-in-dying, which they defined as the right of a mentally competent and terminally ill person to obtain a prescription for a lethal dosage of drugs from a physician to hasten death.

“Although New York has long recognized a competent adult's right to forgo life-saving medical care, we reject the plaintiffs' argument that an individual has a fundamental constitutional right to aid-in-dying as they define it. We also reject plaintiffs' assertion that the state's prohibition on assisted suicide is not rationally related to legitimate state interests,” the Court of Appeals said in the 5-0 ruling. Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and Judge Paul Feinman did not take part. “Our Legislature has a rational basis for criminalizing assisted suicide, and plaintiffs have no constitutional right to the relief they seek herein,” the Court of Appeals, affirming the ruling by the Appellate Division, First Department, (NYLJ, May 4, 2016) and acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Kenney (NYLJ, Oct. 21, 2015).