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The Right to Die

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Ant:
The Right to Die

The John Roberts Court will hear its first high-profile arguments today, when the justices take up a case involving doctor-assisted suicide. Oregon law allows terminally ill people to take lethal drugs to end their lives. But the Bush administration has tried to override this law by threatening to prosecute doctors involved in such cases. The Supreme Court should make it clear that Oregon can allow doctor-assisted suicide.

Oregonians voted in favor of the Death With Dignity Act in 1994, and three years later they voted against repeal. The Oregon law allows terminally ill people who are likely to die within six months to receive drugs to end their lives. When John Ashcroft, a longtime opponent of assisted suicide, became attorney general in 2001, he issued an edict that doctors who prescribe drugs that are used to commit suicide can be prosecuted under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The state of Oregon and a group of terminally ill patients challenged this Ashcroft directive and won.

This case nominally involves two hot-button issues: the right of terminally ill people to end their lives, and the allocation of power between the federal government and states. But the Court of Appeals was right to resolve it more simply, through a careful interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act. Mr. Ashcroft claimed that the law gave him the power to overrule Oregon's assisted suicide policy. But when Congress passed the act, it clearly intended to prohibit ordinary drug abuse, not to set out a federal policy on assisted suicide.

Opponents of assisted suicide have never been able to persuade Congress to outlaw assisted suicide directly. In the absence of a Congressional law, Mr. Ashcroft had no authority to interfere with the decision of Oregon's voters.

In his zeal to stop assisted suicide, Mr. Ashcroft, a self-described legal conservative, turned his back on two principles that are sacred to legal conservativism. First, he refused to strictly, or even accurately, construe a Congressional statute. Instead, he inserted meaning in it that did not belong there, giving himself power that he should not have had. Second, he ignored conservative dogma about deference to the states, especially on matters like regulating medical practice, a core state concern.

The impact of today's case will be felt beyond Oregon. The Bush administration's position has discouraged other states from enacting assisted suicide laws. But the Supreme Court should make clear that Oregon, and all states, have the right to allow terminally ill people to end their lives with a maximum of dignity and a minimum of pain.

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Anyways do you support or oppose a right to suicide?

7even:
I support euthanasia. Everybody should have the right to end his life properly, I think. And I'd rather have it in a more civilised way than ppl jumping in front of trains in the subway while little kids are watching.

Low Key:
I'd prefer to die naturally. But say for instance if someone was in a lot of pain and was going to die anyways, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to end their own life.

Trauma-san:
I have no concrete feelings on it, it's a hard subject.  Do you really want Doctors having the right to kill people?  How long before they kill all the poor they're in charge or watching but aren't paying their doctor bills?  Think about that for a while. 

Low Key:

--- Quote from: I Want My Donation Back on October 05, 2005, 06:51:33 AM ---I have no concrete feelings on it, it's a hard subject.  Do you really want Doctors having the right to kill people?  How long before they kill all the poor they're in charge or watching but aren't paying their doctor bills?  Think about that for a while. 

--- End quote ---

If a law was passed, things like that could be avoided if the patient had to get a judge's approval for a doctor to perform the assissted suicide. There has to be a legitimate reason why they want to be euthanised.

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