Oceanbreeze
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Meg:
You might be interested in this, maybe.
Lets discuss.
Mods: This could turn into a debate, so if you think it would be better suited for the debate forum, please move this to that forum when appropriate. Thank you.
High Court to Review Assisted Suicide Law
Challenge to Oregon Statute Centers on Use of Lethal Doses of Drugs
By HOPE YEN, AP
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Feb. 22) - The Supreme Court stepped back into the right-to-die debate Tuesday, agreeing to hear the Bush administration's challenge to a unique state law allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients die more quickly.
The decision to review Oregon's law during the session beginning in October sets up another fight over whether states or the federal government should decide the delicate question.
The same nine justices sided with states in 1997, but four years later Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that federal drug laws prohibited doctors from prescribing lethal doses. An appeals court rejected that interpretation and the Bush administration is appealing the decision.
Since the Oregon law took effect in 1997, more than 170 people have used it to end their lives. The law is meant for only extremely sick people - those with incurable diseases who two doctors agree have six months or less to live and are of sound mind.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, said the Bush administration is trampling on state's rights.
"While politics has driven the appeals of the lower court's decisions on this law, I am confident that now that politics are put aside, the Supreme Court will ultimately side with the rights of Oregonians as citizens of a sovereign state," he said.
But a physicians' group that opposes Oregon's law said it is hopeful the court will toss out the law on the grounds that giving lethal prescriptions is not a legitimate medical practice.
"We don't believe that any state should be permitted to unilaterally exempt itself from federal law forbidding the misuse of federally controlled substances to overdose vulnerable patients," said Dr. Kenneth Stevens, a spokesman for Physicians for Compassionate Care.
A panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Oregon last May, saying Ashcroft's "unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide."
Ashcroft filed the appeal last November, on the day his resignation was announced by the White House.
Oregon voters passed the law in 1994 but it was placed on hold because of legal challenges. In 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that individuals had no constitutional right to die, upholding state bans on physician-assisted suicide.
However, the opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said individual states could decide to permit the practice.
Prodded by that ruling, Oregon voters affirmed its physician-assisted suicide law for a second time in 1997. Attorney General Janet Reno later said states may regulate their own doctors and rejected a request to use federal drug laws to prosecute physicians who help patients die.
Ashcroft's Justice Department in 2001 said it would use the federal Controlled Substances Act to punish doctors who prescribe overdoses since physician-assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose."
The issue now before the Supreme Court is whether the federal law authorizes the Justice Department to sanction doctors, and, if so, whether Congress has the authority to prohibit assisted suicide if a state chose to allow it.
The Oregon challenge is the second right-to-die case to come before the Supreme Court this year. Last month, justices rejected a legal challenge to Florida's "Terri's Law," a measure to keep Terri Schiavo, who is severely brain-damaged, on life support over the objections of her husband.
Schiavo, whose legal fight is continuing, could be taken off life support as early as Wednesday.
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.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he expects some in Congress will seek to circumvent Oregon's law if the Supreme Court upholds it.
"This is an issue that should be left up to the voters of the individual states, and I am determined that the rights of Oregonians will not be trampled here," he said.
The case is Gonzales v. Oregon, 04-623.
02/22/05 16:33 EST
You might be interested in this, maybe.
Lets discuss.
Mods: This could turn into a debate, so if you think it would be better suited for the debate forum, please move this to that forum when appropriate. Thank you.
High Court to Review Assisted Suicide Law
Challenge to Oregon Statute Centers on Use of Lethal Doses of Drugs
By HOPE YEN, AP
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Feb. 22) - The Supreme Court stepped back into the right-to-die debate Tuesday, agreeing to hear the Bush administration's challenge to a unique state law allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients die more quickly.
The decision to review Oregon's law during the session beginning in October sets up another fight over whether states or the federal government should decide the delicate question.
The same nine justices sided with states in 1997, but four years later Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that federal drug laws prohibited doctors from prescribing lethal doses. An appeals court rejected that interpretation and the Bush administration is appealing the decision.
Since the Oregon law took effect in 1997, more than 170 people have used it to end their lives. The law is meant for only extremely sick people - those with incurable diseases who two doctors agree have six months or less to live and are of sound mind.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, said the Bush administration is trampling on state's rights.
"While politics has driven the appeals of the lower court's decisions on this law, I am confident that now that politics are put aside, the Supreme Court will ultimately side with the rights of Oregonians as citizens of a sovereign state," he said.
But a physicians' group that opposes Oregon's law said it is hopeful the court will toss out the law on the grounds that giving lethal prescriptions is not a legitimate medical practice.
"We don't believe that any state should be permitted to unilaterally exempt itself from federal law forbidding the misuse of federally controlled substances to overdose vulnerable patients," said Dr. Kenneth Stevens, a spokesman for Physicians for Compassionate Care.
A panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Oregon last May, saying Ashcroft's "unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide."
Ashcroft filed the appeal last November, on the day his resignation was announced by the White House.
Oregon voters passed the law in 1994 but it was placed on hold because of legal challenges. In 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that individuals had no constitutional right to die, upholding state bans on physician-assisted suicide.
However, the opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said individual states could decide to permit the practice.
Prodded by that ruling, Oregon voters affirmed its physician-assisted suicide law for a second time in 1997. Attorney General Janet Reno later said states may regulate their own doctors and rejected a request to use federal drug laws to prosecute physicians who help patients die.
Ashcroft's Justice Department in 2001 said it would use the federal Controlled Substances Act to punish doctors who prescribe overdoses since physician-assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose."
The issue now before the Supreme Court is whether the federal law authorizes the Justice Department to sanction doctors, and, if so, whether Congress has the authority to prohibit assisted suicide if a state chose to allow it.
The Oregon challenge is the second right-to-die case to come before the Supreme Court this year. Last month, justices rejected a legal challenge to Florida's "Terri's Law," a measure to keep Terri Schiavo, who is severely brain-damaged, on life support over the objections of her husband.
Schiavo, whose legal fight is continuing, could be taken off life support as early as Wednesday.
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.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he expects some in Congress will seek to circumvent Oregon's law if the Supreme Court upholds it.
"This is an issue that should be left up to the voters of the individual states, and I am determined that the rights of Oregonians will not be trampled here," he said.
The case is Gonzales v. Oregon, 04-623.
02/22/05 16:33 EST
I also understand what Banjo is saying, and he raises a good point, but I agree with you, Meggie. Like you, I've seen some horrible stuff, and I also have been in medical situations that really would make one think. Speaking soley for myself here, I do not want to be lying in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of every orifice. There's no dignity in dying that way.
Magatsu. 