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virus: High Court to Review Assisted Suicide Law
« on: 2005-02-22 10:20:57 » |
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High Court to Review Assisted Suicide Law
Feb 22, 10:12 AM (ET)
By HOPE YEN
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will hear a
challenge to the nation's only assisted suicide law, taking up a case
embracing the Bush administration's appeal to stop doctors from helping
terminally ill patients die more quickly.
Justices will review a lower court ruling that said the U. S. government
cannot sanction or hold doctors criminally liable for prescribing
overdoses under Oregon's voter-approved Death with Dignity Act. Since
1998, more than 170 people - most with cancer - have used the law to end
their lives.
Arguments will be heard in the court's next term, which begins in October.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft filed the appeal last November, on
the day his resignation was announced by the White House, arguing that
physician-assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" and
that doctors take an oath to heal patients, not help them die.
Oregon countered by saying that regulation of doctors generally has been
the sole responsibility of the states. Ashcroft has no authority under
the federal Controlled Substances Act to punish doctors because Congress
intended the law only to prevent illegal drug trafficking, the state argued.
The San Francisco-based 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with
Oregon last May.
"The attorney general's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical
practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the
democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide," wrote Judge Richard
Tallman in the 2-1 opinion.
In 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that individuals had no
constitutional right to die, upholding state bans on physician-assisted
suicide. In an opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the court
suggested it was up to the individual states to decide whether to permit
or ban the practice.
The issue now before the high court is whether Congress could step in to
prohibit assisted suicide if a state chose to allow it, and, if so,
whether the federal Controlled Substances Act authorizes the Justice
Department to do so.
Oregon voters approved the law in 1994 and overwhelmingly affirmed it
three years later when it was returned to the ballot following a failed
legal challenge that stalled its implementation.
The law allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live
to request a lethal dose of drugs. Two doctors must confirm the
diagnosis and determine the patient to be mentally competent to make the
request.
The Oregon challenge is the second right-to-die case to come before the
Supreme Court this year. Last month, justices rejected Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush's appeal to keep Terri Schiavo, who is severely brain-damaged, on
life support over the objections of her husband.
Schiavo, whose legal fight is continuing, was scheduled to be taken off
life support as early as Tuesday.
In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill people may refuse
treatment that would otherwise keep them alive, but declined in the 1997
case to extend that constitutional right to obtaining medication that
would put them to death.
The case is Gonzales v. Oregon, 04-623.
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