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.
Um, look around. Plenty of Big Government conservatives around.
States Rights (or Individual Rights) just ain't what they used to be.
The federal government should not be in the business that of jailing doctors who help terminally ill patients choose when to die.
I hope that the abortion issue is next. The abortion legal conundrums should also be left to the states to decide.
I'm a conservative in favor of federalism, the system set up by our Founding Fathers where the federal government has a limited role in our lives.
Now the state and local governments can certainly regulate these issues.
I agree, but most everyone here cheered the USSC decision not to get involved in TW case or the one yesterday in California. Now they are sad that they did not get involved with Oregon. I think they were right in both decisions.
Maybe you should "smite" yourself for such blasphemy...
Thanks!
Yeah, that's strange.
It would be easier with a doctor's help.
"This decision takes power FROM the government and gives it TO the individual."
Which is probably a great comfort to a bedridden multiple sclerosis sufferer without the ability to hold a pen, much less a shotgun (or whatever unassisted, painless and reliable method you could choose).
Like or not -you make an argument by default -a morally liberal argument... The premise of your question is flawed. Your argument fails at the very moment it is presented when you consider execution of a guilty individual to be the same as euthanasia... Or accidental deaths as result of a just war to be the same as murder etcetera etcetera...
No state or nation has the right to kill innocent human beings, or the right to grant that authority either to an individual, a group, or a class of it's people. The 5th Amendment's due process clause, which recognizes the right of a person not to be deprived of LIFE, liberty, or property except by due process of law, was clearly written in the context of prosecuting persons accused of committing crimes.
The phrase "without due process of law" in that context cannot reasonably be interpreted in any other way except to deny government the power to take the life of a person who has not been found guilty of a capital crime through the due process of law. Due process of law clearly means a lawful trial by jury presided over by a duly appointed or elected judge, something the old sick people of OR will not be afforded before a physician violates his or her Hippocratic oath by administering the fatal dose.
If you want to argue that the BOR is a restraint only on the federal government's power, I refer you to the 14th Amendment which gives the same due process protection from deprivation of life to every citizen of every state of the US.
Except, according to today's USSC decision, old and sick residents of OR. The USSC has for the past 4 or 5 decades abandoned all pretense of interpreting the Constitution, now it simply rules by judicial fiat to achieve whatever end it believes is proper for the circumstances here and now.
Well we will all die someday. The people that die within six months will be just as dead as the people killed prior to the six months. The only difference I see is that the killers that survive to kill again will be comforted by this ruling and possibly be delusionally led to believe that the killing they do is a good thing...
Yes, you're right. I screwed up. Wishful thinking.
If a person can't kill himself because he is that far disabled, that's too bad but it's horribly immoral and selfish to expect, insist, demand, blackmail and/or coerce innocent people and doctors to participate in murder or "assisted suicide".
My family members and in-laws have already been told that I will not be a participant in any nonsense like that.
I can let someone go but I cannot and will not be involved in any forced deaths, even at the deathee-to-be's insistance.
Now, I'm still reading back in the 300's, so I might not answer for awhile until I catch up.
"Euthanasia involves killing another person. The Oregon law is about killing oneself (i.e., suicide!)"
"something the old sick people of OR will not be afforded before a physician violates his or her Hippocratic oath by administering the fatal dose."
That's not what's provided for by the Oregon law.
"Since suicide is a matter of alleviating suffering, I would like to avoide botching the attempt and potentially increase my present agonies."
"Yes, you're right. I screwed up. Wishful thinking."
It's so easy to be an optimist when they use all the right words, like liberty and Constitution and freedom, all those civics lesson words we learned way back in school. It's too bad so few really know what the words mean any more. And of course, those who do know the meaning never seem to believe in it after they get elected or appointed to government office.
I'm really depressed about my kids' future when I see that even an Alito won't make a difference in rulings like this. It's always just one more...Senator, Representative, Justice, election...do I have to wait until I'm on my deathbed to see justice done in this country again?
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