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.
On the other hand, if someone who is not Christian wants to end their life, who are we to say they must follow OUR belief of God? Have you witnessed to them? Have you explained our great Savior?
This is the problem I have with "social" conservatism and why I lean libertarian anymore. I believe it my duty to change hearts one at a time. It is not my government's job to mandate Christianity.
"Heaven help us if government ever gets into the business of protecting us from ourselves."~~Ronald Reagan
So it will be a 5-4 court with Kennedy as the swing vote. I see either Ginsberg or Jones leaving soon. 4-5 vote with Kennedy as the swing vote.
The restacking of the court alone will be quite the legacy for GWB. I also think the WH learned a lesson with Alito - hit for the fence in terms of conservatism. The Senate now knows how to defend a conservative, and the Democrats are so seriously on the intellectual defensive that it almost doesn't matter how far to the right you go anymore.
When was the last time anyone was prosecuted for "attempted suicide"?
The problem comes when that next step is taken and others will be permitted to decide when you die.
As a Christian this is a very tough call. Advances in medical technology have managed to keep people alive long after they've quit living and this unfortunately smears the line between those who would die with or without that technology and those that suffer longer because of it.
So was slavery
The majority’s newfound understanding of the CSA as astatute of limited reach is all the more puzzling because it rests upon constitutional principles that the majority ofthe Court rejected in Raich. Notwithstanding the States' "'traditional police powers to define the criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens,'" 545 U. S., at ___, n. 38 (slip op., at 27, n. 38), the Raich majority concluded that the CSA applied to the intrastate possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes authorized by California law because "Congress could have rationally" concluded that such an application was necessary to the regulation of the “larger interstate marijuana market.” Id., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 28, 30). Here, by contrast, the majority’s restrictive interpretation of the CSA is based in no small part on "the structure and limitations of federalism, which allow the States '"great latitude under their police powers to legislate as to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons."'"
I think he's great! Pointing out their hypocrisy is PRICELESS!
Correct. The government doesn't own us.
It always gets me when I see Freeper thread like "THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO PRIVACY"
Well, it may not be specifically enumerated, but just because it isn't, that doesn't mean if I'm walking down the street, a federal marshall is allowed to grab me, pull my pants down, and laugh if he wants to.
Of course there is a right to privacy, there has been a right to privacy in every society that ever existed.
The same people who don't want a right to privacy because of the abortion ruling will scream bloody murder if they try to get on a plane and they get patted down...
So it's gotta be one way or the other.
The exercise of free will also always has consequences.
(excerpted)
"Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.
Kennedy is expected to become a more influential swing voter after O'Connor's departure. He is a moderate conservative who sometimes joins the liberal wing of the court in cases involving such things as gay rights and capital punishment. ---
---
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for himself, Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, said that federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine.
full ap article at link in prior post
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1559543/posts?page=435#435
---
Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Suicide Law By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.
Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said that a federal drug law does not override the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people. New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration, dissenting for the first time.
The administration improperly tried to use a drug law to punish Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of prescription medicines, the court majority said.
"Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.
Kennedy is expected to become a more influential swing voter after O'Connor's departure. He is a moderate conservative who sometimes joins the liberal wing of the court in cases involving such things as gay rights and capital punishment.
The ruling was a reprimand to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who in 2001 said that doctor-assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" and that Oregon physicians would be punished for helping people die under the law.
Kennedy said the "authority claimed by the attorney general is both beyond his expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design."
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for himself, Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, said that federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine.
"If the term `legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death," he wrote.
Scalia said the court's ruling "is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal government's business. It is easy to sympathize with that position."
Oregon's law covers only extremely sick people — those with incurable diseases, whom at least two doctors agree have six months or less to live and are of sound mind.
The ruling backed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 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."
Ashcroft had brought the case to the Supreme Court on the day his resignation was announced by the White House in 2004. The Justice Department has continued the case, under the leadership of his successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The court's ruling was not a final say on federal authority to override state doctor-assisted suicide laws — only a declaration that the current federal scheme did not permit that. However, it could still have ramifications outside of Oregon.
"This is a disappointing decision that is likely to result in a troubling movement by states to pass their own assisted suicide laws," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which backed the administration.
Sen. Ron Wyden (news, bio, voting record), D-Ore., and a supporter of the law, said the ruling "has stopped, for now, the administration's attempts to wrest control of decisions rightfully left to the states and individuals."
Thomas wrote his own dissent as well, to complain that the court's reasoning was puzzling. Roberts did not write separately.
Justices have dealt with end-of-life cases before. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill people may refuse treatment that would otherwise keep them alive. Then, justices in 1997 unanimously ruled that people have no constitutional right to die, upholding state bans on physician-assisted suicide. That opinion, by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, said individual states could decide to allow the practice.
Roberts strongly hinted in October when the case was argued that he would back the administration. O'Connor had seemed ready to support Oregon's law, but her vote would not have counted if the ruling was handed down after she left the court.
The case is Gonzales v. Oregon, 04-623.
___
On the Net:
Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
No. It said that states may regulate the presence (or absence, in this case) of criminal penalties against doctors, for the use of a controlled substance under the doctor's direction. The waiving of criminal penalty is conditioned on following statutory procedures.
The tougher legal inconsistency to square is this opinion v. the medical marijuana one (Raich), where SCOTUS held that the federal regulation was superior to the state one. Thomas's dissent uses that line of argument.
I haven't deconstructed either case in great detail, so take my summary analysis with a grain of salt. One bottom line buzzphrase is "illicit use." One bottom line question unsettled is who gets to decide what is licit and what is illicit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5551822,00.html
New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration, dissenting for the first time.
``Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance,'' Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.
Kennedy is expected to become a more influential swing voter after O'Connor's departure. He is a moderate conservative who sometimes joins the liberal wing of the court in cases involving such things as gay rights and capital punishment.
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