Oregon Ping
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Posted on 10/05/2005 9:46:26 AM PDT by Grendel9
WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly installed Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday sharply questioned a lawyer arguing for preservation of Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law, noting the federal government's tough regulation of addictive drugs.
The 50-year-old Roberts, hearing his first oral argument since succeeding William H. Rehnquist at the helm of the court, seemed skeptical of the Oregon law, and the outcome of this case was as unclear after the argument as before.
At the outset, Roberts laid a barrage of questions on Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Robert Atkinson before he could finish his first sentence.
"It's a tough case," signed Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate, who with Roberts and others got immersed in one of the most vexing cases to come before the court. Justices pondered whether the federal government has the power to block doctors from helping terminally ill patients end their lives.
As they did so, demonstrators — some carrying signs saying "My Life, My Death, My Decision" — carried their pleas to the courthouse steps.
Inside, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor seemed ready to back the law allowing dying patients to obtain lethal doses of medication from their doctors.
Although O'Connor could provide the fifth vote in Oregon's favor, she likely will be off the court before the case is decided. A 4-4 tie would be decided by a new justice.
Voters in Oregon have twice endorsed doctor-assisted suicide, but the Bush administration has aggressively challenged the state law, the only one of its kind in the nation.
O'Connor immediately challenged Solicitor General Paul Clement, asking if federal drug laws also prevented doctors from participating in the execution of murderers.
Kennedy said he found it "odd" that the U.S. attorney general determined physician-assisted suicide to be an abuse of drug laws, when the state of Oregon strictly limited how the drugs could be administered and in what cases.
"I don't think it's odd," Clement replied, noting that federal laws regulating drug use have been in place for more than 90 years.
The case was heard by justices touched personally by illness. Three justices — O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens — have had cancer, and a fourth — Stephen Breyer — has a spouse who counsels young cancer patients who are dying.
Their longtime colleague, Rehnquist, who once wrote about the "earnest and profound debate" over doctor-assisted suicide, died a month ago after battling untreatable cancer for nearly a year.
In 1997 the court found that the terminally ill have no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide. O'Connor provided a key fifth vote in that decision, which left room for state-by-state experimentation.
The appeal is a turf battle of sorts, not a constitutional showdown. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, a favorite among the president's base of religious conservatives, decided in 2001 to pursue doctors who help people die.
Hastening someone's death is an improper use of medication and violates federal drug laws, Ashcroft reasoned, an opposite conclusion than the one reached by Janet Reno, the Clinton administration attorney general.
Oregon filed a lawsuit to defend its law, which took effect in 1997 and has been used by 208 people.
The Supreme Court will decide whether the federal government can trump the state.
"It could be close," said Neil Siegel, a law professor at Duke University and former Supreme Court clerk. "It is a wrenching issue. It's one of the most difficult decisions any family needs to make. There's a lot of discomfort with having the government at any level get involved."
Under Rehnquist's leadership the court had sought to embolden states to set their own rules. Roberts, who once served as a law clerk to Rehnquist and worked as a government lawyer, may be sympathetic to Bush administration arguments that the federal government needs ultimate authority to control drugs.
In this case, that would be at odds with the concept, popular among conservatives, of limiting federal interference.
The administration lost at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which said Ashcroft's "unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide."
In Oregon, the first assisted-suicide law won narrow approval, just a 51 percent majority, in 1994. An effort to repeal it in 1997 was rejected by 60 percent of voters.
"There is a real human need" for control over one's life, said cancer patient Charlene Andrews of Salem, Ore. "We are terminal and we know when we have a few weeks left. We know when we're unconscious. We know when we're at the end."
The case before the Supreme Court is Gonzales v. Oregon, 04-623.
We all know that every doctor provides hospice care and dosages of pure morphine to patients suffering pain during the final stages of cancer. They can even tell a patient exactly how many days they have until the end. So, I don't understand what the plaint of Ms. Andrews is. She said on TV, "We want another option." That sounds to me like she's bent on suicide the day she wakes up and decides she's tired of waiting for the end and wants the doctor to hand her the final dose. If that's the case, she can simply take a big dose of sleeping tablets herself instead of making someone else her executioner. If she KNOWS when it's too near "the end," she should have no trouble ascertaining WHEN her time to act for herself has arrived. I don't buy into this argument that the government should pay for one's birth, health care and now death care. At what point does the individual assume some responsibility after birth?
We're we told the most euphoric way to die is to simply stop eating? Nobody needs a doctor or the government to stop eating.
"I don't think it's odd," Clement replied, noting that federal laws regulating drug use have been in place for more than 90 years.
All of which begs the question "What is the Constitutional authority for federal drug laws in the first place?"
"We're we told the most euphoric way to die is to simply stop eating?"
And the lawyer/judge who pushed that view in the Terry Schiavo case were from the Sheeple's Republic of FloriDUH, too - ya got a problem accepting such experts? /sarc off.
None, the conservative position from the early 1900's was the government had no power to regulate the issue. Judicial activist judges invented it.
I think he never should have been there in the first place. I think doctor assisted suicide should be allowed in some cases.
Oregon Ping
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There seem to be two issues here: 1) whether the Federal Government can regulate the legal drug trade and the legal uses of drugs, which it has done for about 90 years under the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution and 2) if it can, do the current drug laws allow the interpretation the Government is arguing for. It's very unlikely that the Court would overturn 90 years of precedent and rule that the Commerce Clause did not allow Federal regulation of prescription drugs. Hence, there's likely to be a very arcane discussion of the history of the prescription drug laws and whether the Government can reasonably interpret them to prohibit drugs from being knowingly prescribed to enable an individual to commit suicide. If the Court follows that analytical approach, instead of trying to do what's "just," then I'll have no personal complaint about the outcome, however the case is finally decided. It will be very interesting to see if Roberts follows this approach in deciding this case.
Good points all.
Lest we forget, when a doctor prescribes morphine for
the patient to alleviate/cut off the pain sensors,
he's actually committing euthanasia indirectly.
Back in 1952, I was pumping so many ccs of morphine
into my mother every three hours under her doctor's
orders. She succumbed within a month. I was worried
that I perhaps had let an air bubble remain in the hypo tank. The doctor quickly assured me I had not. "No.
The morphine eventually accumulates and causes the heart
to cease beating. It's a painless death."
In 2001 a good family friend was given the exact same treatment but through the hospice program. She died
in exactly the same way, except she was given draughts
of morphine to swallow instead of the injections. So,
in essence, we ARE committing euthanasia and have been
for over half a century...probably longer.
My slant on this case is it's a very technical, and important, legal issue about the scope of the Federal government's power under the drug laws and there are lots of conflicting currents. I can't hazard any type of reasonable guess as to how it will come out. My only prediction is that it will be a split decision and it will be very hard to determine if any justice is a conservative or liberal from the decision. Remember, a statist (liberal) would normally rule in favor of the Federal position, while many conservatives would take a states' rights position and rule in favor of Oregon.
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