Posted on 10/05/2005 9:49:39 AM PDT by Brilliant
WASHINGTON - 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 major 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," noted Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate, who with Roberts and others got immersed in one of the most vexing cases of the court's term. 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.
The administration lost at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which said that 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.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9547652/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497183/posts
I agree with you entirely. And I think it important to keep an eye on Oregon to ensure it doesn't slip the same way. On the other hand, I see growing federal government power as being a bigger danger.
I have been very busy and didn't ping this out; I hope to later. It's an ****extremely**** important issue.
Human life is a gift from God, throwing it away is a grave offense to Him.
Honestly, Saundra, I don't know how how this family held up like they did...truly I can not imagine walking in their shoes and holding onto my sanity, much less the tremendous love and dignity they model.
It's not being thrown away. It's over. All that remains is pain, suffering and a steady drain of ones resources to macabre ghouls that view pain and suffering as holy.
I couldn't agree more.
LBJ's Great Society: 40 Years Later
"In the fifties, although blacks were still struggling for equal opportunities and were on the low end of the economic ladder, the black family was for the most part strong and stable. Two parent families were the rule, not the exception. They attended church together, had strong moral values, and did not comprise a majority of the prison population."
"Compare that to the present state of the black community after 40 years of Liberal Socialism. Our prisons are disproportionably black, unwed mothers and single parent families are the rule, black youths without a strong male role model other than rap stars and basketball players, roam the streets and are drawn into a culture of drugs and crime."
What does the 14th Amendment have to do with the Great Society view of the Commerce Clause?
Moral Absolutes Ping.
There are going to be more articles on this upcoming decision, here's a representative one. What follows below is a response to a comment, which was a resonse to a comment I made.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
To spunkets: I'm not referring to keeping a dying body artificially alive with machinery.
If you think that if a person is in pain then it's better they die, I can only feel sorry for your empty life.
If you think there is no transcendent meaning or purpose to life, I feel very sorry for your empty life.
An important point to consider is this:
With doctor assisted suicide, doctors - who are supposed to heal and help - are doubling as executioners. (Of course, there are already the abortionist "doctors"... another evidence of doctors turned executioners.) Suicide, although illegal in many places (I mean, what's the sentencing guidelines for a successful suicide performer?) can be done without any help from a doctor. There are even books about how to do it easily.
What official doctor assisted suicide does is take it out of the realm of private lives and give it the government and medical official stamp of approval. And once it has the official stamp, people WILL BE ENCOURAGED TO DO IT. Of this there is not one iota of doubt. If is okay, or even beneficial, the line of who is "eligible" will change, as it has done and is doing in the Netherlands. And then, there are those too ill or disabled to actually "ask" to die - someone has to decide for them - already happening in the Netherlands.
I'm not interested in etherial emptiness, or fullness. I'm interested in keeping the jackboots out of the death bed and out of family matters where they don't belong and are highly unwelcome.
You want to play with transcendent meanings, fullness, emptiness, ect... you can do it w/o your jackboots and prisons.
They are not doubling as executioners. Death is imminent, they are simply acting to enable the patient to fore go the pain.
" What official doctor assisted suicide does is take it out of the realm of private lives and give it the government and medical official stamp of approval."
The govm'ts already involved. Family members caught by your jackboots are charged and convicted with felonies. Fed drug agents harrass and pull licences of docs, whoo in their opinion, dispense too much pain killer. Your claim is both false and shallow, because you are unwilling to even acknowledge that problem and work for a soluiton.
Except, of course, that legalized abortion was handed down by the Federal Gov't. Oregon couldn't criminalize abortion if they wanted to. Which is the other side of the very States Rights you are against.
Wow - highly intellect-chew-all response. Jackboots, eeevil "govm'ts" involvement, and I committed the crime of stating that life actually has purpose and meaning...
If people privately want to commit suicide, they are free to do so. The Hemlock Society has how-to manuals, poison is easy to buy, so are guns, and it's a snap to garner a few extra pills and swallow them.
It's death lovers like yourself who want government's stamp of approval. And, I notice, folks such as yourself who want government's jackboots on your side, never respond to the relevant details - like what's happening in the Netherlands. Or maybe you think it's cool that sick children and old people are killed without even asking them?
Not stamp of approval, just stay out of it. Also, death lover doesn't fit, because it's false. The term jackboot does, because they do your bidding for you.
"The Hemlock Society has how-to manuals"
The State of OR isn't happy with your drain cleaner solution. They voted for morphine.
" And, I notice, folks such as yourself who want government's jackboots on your side,"
Again, not on any side, just the hell out of it.
" relevant details - like what's happening in the Netherlands."
Not relevant. Stick with the case at hand and quit trying to obfuscate by dragging in the irrelevant.
LIKE THIS!
"Or maybe you think it's cool that sick children and old people are killed without even asking them?"
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