SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OREGON'S SUICIDE LAW

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[righteousindignation]

if you just would accept that you clearly do not understand what it means to be a Christian then a discussion would be in the correct context. At least 98% of our founding fathers were Christians and based the Constitution upon their faith.

[highball]

The Constitution allows the federal government to intervene when the states make immoral laws. It can outlaw slavery in states, as well as other immoral activities. If Oregon decides that selling 12 year old girls as sex slaves (which it may well do with the way it's going), then the Constitution permits the Federal Government to intervene.

Having to draw a line between slavery and the right of a patient to determine with his doctor how best to treat a terminal disease doesn't exactly give your position much credibility.

Those deal with people's rights being violated against their will. There is no such allegation here - the participants are all consenting to the treatment.

The Constitution, which we all revere and value, DOES allow for the federal government to stop the murder of patients by their doctors. The liberal court we presently have has not done that.

It does? Where? Where is the power to get involved in the doctor/patient relationship enumerated in the Constitution?

Let me ask you a serious question. Did you go to public schools and college? How is it that you are unaware that the laws of our land are based on Judeo-Christian law as they are?

"Based on" is not relevant. I don't look at any murky "intent" of the Founders, only on what they actually put in the Constitution. This power that the Federal Government wants to assert isn't in there.

If the Founders had wanted to enshrine the Bible as the law of the land, they could have. They chose not to. The Constitution is the highest law of the land.

If you think your schooling is so much superior to mine, perhaps you can tell me where in the Constitution a higher set of laws is recognized as enforceable by the state.

[highball]

if you just would accept that you clearly do not understand what it means to be a Christian then a discussion would be in the correct context. At least 98% of our founding fathers were Christians and based the Constitution upon their faith.

And yet, as I just posted, those men chose not to make the Bible the law of the land.

They knew the difference between personal morality and state-enforced morality. Shame that so many have forgotten the distinction.

[ohioWfan]

If the Founders had wanted to enshrine the Bible as the law of the land, they could have. They chose not to. The Constitution is the highest law of the land

As long as you continue to misquote me, and misinterpret what I have very clearly stated, there is no point in continuing this discussion.

Once again. Thanks for the discussion.

But in your spare time, you can mull over why Moses and the Ten Commandments are engraved on the Supreme Court building.

No need to reply. Just think about it.

[ohioWfan]

So I guess you can't really blame my ignorance entirely on public schools.

I guess not.

[TKDietz]

There are abuses and people ignoring the laws, even those in power, whether the laws are "informed in religion" or not. That just happens. Certainly slaves were raped and murdered in this country too and not a lot of people were punished for it. And certainly laws that those who write them claim are God's will can be and certainly have been terrible laws in many cases in the past. A lot of evil has been done in the name of religion , often by people who may have earnestly believed they were doing God's work on earth.

Look, I am not against laws that people pass because of religious convictions if they are fair laws that make sense even if we ignore the religious component. I don't like laws that are in effect simply just some people claiming to know God's will and imposing it on others if the laws needlessly restrict freedom or compel others to do things they don't want to do that they must do really just to satisfy someone else's idea of what God wants. There is a lot of danger in laws like that to me. Laws should be fair and justifiable and "right" even if we take out the religious reasoning behind them.

There are people out there who for religious reasons believe that people should not seek medical attention if they are sick. They believe God just wants them to pray about it and if it is God's will that they get better they will get well, but I guess they are tampering with God's will if they seek medical attention. If people want to believe that way, it is fine by me. But I would be absolutely opposed to laws that require others to live and die by the same standards. If I get sick or someone in my family gets sick we're going to the doctor.

I may be coming across here as some sort of terrible heathen, but that really isn't the case. In college I was elected president of our Christian Education Committee. I worked at a Christian summer camp in the summers. I was very active in our Christian choir and I sang Christian songs at weddings. I was in the balcony at a local church singing the Lord's Prayer the first time my wife ever got a glimpse of me. I actually strongly considered going to divinity school at one time.

I'm not as much of a heathen as you might think. I'm just leery of laws and governmental actions arising solely out of religious beliefs. I think that is really all that is going on in this particular matter involving Oregon's assisted suicide law. This is a case where people are trying to invalidate a state law that came about through democratic process because it does not comport with their religious beliefs. This law is what Oregonians wanted though. It is a narrow law providing for assisted suicide in certain limited situations where a person who will be dying soon anyway. They have strict controls on it and built in safeguards to see that people who avail themselves of the law are doing so knowingly and voluntarily. It does not harm innocent people. It doesn't affect me or you. The only people affected by it are those who are voluntarily involved with the assisted suicide. I personally would not avail myself of such a law, but if that's what some people there want to do, that's their business. The federal government really in my opinion does not have the Constitutionally granted power to intervene in this case.

I think that a lot of the opposition to Oregon's law is not so much because people are greatly opposed to this one limited exception to anti-suicide laws, it's more just part of the bigger fight against the pro-abortion folks. There's a big worry about a "slippery slope" from laws like Oregon's. I worry about slippery slopes too, but in this case my bigger fears are about the federal government's ever expanding powers and intrusions into things that were to be the province of the states, and a fear of government putting it's nose farther and farther into how physicians practice medicine.

As for the federal government's ever expansive use of the commerce clause to regulate things they were never intended to have the power to regulate, we have already slipped down that slope and fallen off the cliff. I want very much for us to put the breaks on this expansion and start giving states back at least some of the powers the feds have usurped.

As for my worries about the government encroaching too much on how doctors practice medicine and really how people live out their final days with dignity and as comfortably as possible, I am worried that we'll get to the point where doctors will be required to keep people alive well past their time through artificial means and that pain medications will become so regulated that doctors will not be able to prescribe enough to keep people comfortable in their final days. We really have something not entirely unlike assisted suicide going on everywhere already. Doctors often prescribe enough pain medication to kill their patients in order to keep them comfortable. Maybe they aren't trying to kill their patients, but they know the meds they give them will do it and they discuss those risks with their patients and their patients families. This isn't a malicious thing doctors are doing, they just don't want their patients living out their final days to needlessly suffer. In some cases these patients with the aid of their doctors are choosing to die before their time. They do it both by taking lethal does of pain medication and/or cutting of necessary life support.

I can see us in our zeal to see that no one dies before their time limiting pain medications to the extent that people have to needlessly suffer and requiring them to stay alive in agony far longer than they would have ever had to live because of modern medical technology that can keep people living much longer than was possible only decades before. Those who would propose these laws and try to shove them down people's throats would do so fully believing in their hearts they were doing the Lord's work. I wouldn't really agree that that is what they were doing and I wouldn't think most others dying in agony would think so either. I will forever be leery of people who in the name of God want to get between those living out their final days and their doctors and make decisions for these dying people about how they proceed with their final days, and ultimately their deaths. I think we owe enough respect to dying people to leave them the heck alone. If ever we should respect their freedom, it is in their end times in this world.

[Canard]

"But in your spare time, you can mull over why Moses and the Ten Commandments are engraved on the Supreme Court building."

That wouldn't seem to have much to do with the intent of the Founding Fathers in writing the constitution. Unless there was an apendix with designs for the Supreme Court building that I've missed...

[highball]

But in your spare time, you can mull over why Moses and the Ten Commandments are engraved on the Supreme Court building.

Moses is there for the same reason that Confucius is.

Heck, Mohammed's there as well - that doesn't mean that the Koran trumps the Constitution, either.

[Gelato]

Who wants the federal gov't involved in this decision? You do.

You're avoiding my point, which is that you pretend to be against government involvement in these decisions, yet you all the while defend the state law of Oregon that codifies and regulates assisted suicide.

You're the one beckoning government into the deathbed, my friend.

[Michamilton]

And now that it was mentioned, give me a little credit, I do recall it was the first words in the DOI.

well.. towards the beginning at least - there's that whole "when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them to another" paragraph first.

[TheWormster]

But in your spare time, you can mull over why Moses and the Ten Commandments are engraved on the Supreme Court building.

No need to reply. Just think about it.

---

You DO realise that Mohammed is engraved there as well, dont you?

[Michamilton]

Few conservatives would choose suicide.

If you look at rankings of states by per-capita suicides (see http://www.suicidology.org/associations/1045/files/2002statedatapg.pdf) you'll notice that red states generally have higher suicide rates.

[ohioWfan]

I was continuing with the teasing of highball that I started yesterday about joining up with the ACLU to remove it.

He got very offended by it........which I found mildly amusing. I find it strange that anyone invests so much of himself in arguing that God had nothing to do with the founding of this country. It makes me wonder what they're trying to prove, and why.....

Sorry to have bothered you folks. Carry on.

[highball]

anyone invests so much of himself in arguing that God had nothing to do with the founding of this country.

Sheesh. Did you even bother to read my posts?

[ohioWfan]

Yeah..........you've been arguing with me for two days. I've read every one of them.

I really don't want to be on this thread any more, highball.

Can you let this go, please?

I honor the Constitution. I don't want America to be a theocracy. I definitely don't want it to be run by fundamentalists........especially since I'm not one.

I've made my points repeatedly......and I don't agree with yours.

I never will. Good bye now....

[highball]

Done.

[ohioWfan]

Thank you.

[memetic]

>Where did that morality come from? Certainly not from
>ourselves

OF COURSE it's from ourselves ... where else could it have come? Aliens? Chimps? Unless of course one were to believe in pixies or ghosts or other supernatural entities, which strike me as extremely unlikely.

[don asmussen]

"-- Who wants the federal gov't involved in decisions to prohibit drugs ? --"

Mojave, and a few others who support big brother.


"-- Who wants the federal gov't to stay out of such decisions? --"


85% of the FReepers polled..


FR Poll Thread: Does the Interstate Commerce Clause authorize prohibition of drugs and firearms?
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1515174/posts

[bvw]

Thoughtful post. I'm pro-legalization of drugs, fwtw. I also know how important it is to be able to wisely self-medicate, with regard to pain meds, for sure. For a time I was in love with the Bela Lagosi (sp?) drug -- Demerol. I needed it, I used it, and thanks to the policy in that hospital, I got it pretty much when I needed it, when I asked for it. I also cut myself down from it and off of it.

Some drugs, like Demerol and Heroin, when legal, should still require use under direct supervision -- such as a clinic or hospital. Others should need certification and permit to use -- by license I mean the use goes through some certification and training, and by permit I mean a temporary official authorization on top of the certification, and a license to sell -- amoung those I would class LSD, cocaine, marijuana beyond a certain potency. Enough of that. Sorry to have run on about that subject.

Back to your post -- please do not take the modern folly that "religion" is somehow seperable from gathering knowledge (science) or making laws. It is not. It is fundamental.

Denial of that fundamental results in great human misery.