Posted on 01/17/2006 7:07:26 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
BREAKING ON THE AP WIRE:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.
I'm quite surprised that Roberts was in the dissent.
the Oregon statute would not shield Kervorkian from prosecution for his serial murders.
I have been reading the opinion and Roberts is not opposed to either states rights or the Constitution.
The majority opinion is political.
What planet have you been on -The Supremes are making law -have been since Roe -more recently with Lawrence... You prefer morally liberal -I prefer morally conservative 'judgments' e.g. privacy does not trump life -enjoy your version of the 'law' while you can...
You can do whatever you want with the end of your life. I can do whatever I want. Isn't that grand?
of course it's political... any conservative who agrees with this is agreeing Gensburg, Stevens and Bryer, and disagreeing with Roberts, Scalia and Thomas.
*President Bush's Christianity is between him and God. I don't know what's in his heart and neither does anyone here. ;)
"JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
The Court concludes that the Attorney General lacked authority to declare assisted suicide illicit under the Con- trolled Substances Act (CSA), because the CSA is con- cerned only with “illicit drug dealing and trafficking,” ante, at 23 (emphasis added). This question-begging conclusion is obscured by a flurry of arguments that dis- tort the statute and disregard settled principles of our interpretive jurisprudence. Contrary to the Court’s analysis, this case involves not one but three independently sufficient grounds for revers- ing the Ninth Circuit’s judgment... "
The eart'? Sounds like you're from Brooklyn, not Texas. :)
And this is based upon the fallacy, voiced in the majority opinion, that doctors are able to determine that a patient will die from their disease within six months.
That's what the first Amendment is for.
My understanding is that some 200 patients have used the law since its enactment in 1994, that is, around 20 people a year. I do not know how many physicians will prescribe the lethal dosage of drugs. Only a person of sound mind with less than six months to live, as determined by two physicians, can request the drugs. A coma patient is not eligible. Family members may not request the life-ending prescription. In addition, the physician may prescribe, but can not administer the drugs under the law.
It's in there, especially the part about how the states have a say in how medicine in their state is run.
In this specific instance, your argument is wrong. It is generally right as a principle, but it can definitely go too far. The modern conservative movement was founded on the principle of "ordered liberty," not liberty as an end in itself. Liberty can become license, as it has in this instance.
Fourteenth Amendment, rather. Don't know what I was thinking.
"How Roberts pass a 'conservative' test? I thought conservatives were for states rights and the Constitution?"
The issue presented was NOT states rights. It was scope of doctors authority/duties under federal statutes.
Read the case briefs and rulings, then opine!
Rather than morally liberal or morally conservative, I prefer decisions based on the law. It's probably unrealistic to hope for more scholarship than bias in decisions, but I'll still hope. :)
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