SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OREGON'S SUICIDE LAW

ap ^

[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.

[highball]

As someone earlier on the thread said........what if the patient is in a state of depression, and could come out of it?

Then that's a different story. They cannot consent to this procedure.

It's not like there aren't screening processes. The state of Oregon didn't do this haphazardly.

[beansox]

Can someone explain to me why the supreme court allows termially ill patients to kill themselves with the help of their docotor, but not allow them to smoke marijuana?

[TKDietz]

"You haven't answered the question as to why you believe the three conservative Constitutionalists on the Court agree with me, and not you."

You should read Scalia's dissent as well the separate dissent written by Thomas. Their opinions do not address any moral question of whether suicide is wrong. What they talk about is the federal government's power to regulate drugs under their commerce powers. Their opinions are based on the premise that the feds have the right to regulate drugs under their commerce power because Courts have ruled that before, and likewise, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), is something Congress had the authority to pass. Then they go on to say that under their powers from the Commerce Clause and the CSA, the feds have the right to regulate in this particular instance too. If you'll read the dissent by Thomas, it is quite apparent that he is none too happy with having to rule the way he ruled in this case. He only does so because he feels like he has to to keep the law in line with the Raich medical marijuana case and other commerce clause cases, even though he disagrees with them. He thought it was entirely inconsistent for the Supreme Court to rule the way they did on Raich and then rule this way on this assisted suicide case. Had his position on Raich been the majority position, I bet he'd have ruled the other way on the present case. Read his dissent and that should be obvious to you too. I liked this line by Thomas especially, "While the scope of the CSA and the Attorney General's power thereunder are sweeping, and perhaps troubling, such expansive federal legislation and broad grants of authority to administrative agencies are merely the inevitable and inexorable consequence of this Court's Commerce Clause and separation-of-powers jurisprudence." Thomas would really like to say the federal government has no business sticking their nose into this.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=04-623

[Almondjoy]

First of all I'm very sorry that you have to go through your situation.

I can somewhat relate. I'm a generation away from you. My grandparents suffered like your parents have. One grandma had parkinsons and was bed ridden for 5 years. The other had alzheimer's as well. Obviously being no more than 22 at the time I didn't have any authority to make any decisions.

I know that my family on both sides were and still are Christians. Neither family decided to push their parents toward death.

Sometimes God has plans that are beyond are comphrension at the time. Sometimes we search for understanding that is not there. I know that on my mom's side with my Grandma that had parkinson's.. my grandpa sat by herside everyday of those 5 years. Loving and caring for her and I know praying for some different outcome. But maybe God's plan was for us as his family to cherish that undying love. When she finally passed it was if he was holding on just for her. He died just two short weeks after from puenomia. I don't have the answer for that. But I do know that is the kind of love that I can only hope to attain for my wife.

Was it a wonderful thing for my grandma to go through that? Depends on who you are I guess. I learned alot and my Grandma & Grandpa I'm sure are to be awarded with the wonderful gift for heaven. Something that both of them I'm sure would of given many many more years of being bedridden in order to be acheived.

[TKDietz]

If this is murder then so is executing someone duly sentenced to die by a court of law. Murder is not legal in Oregon. Go shoot someone in the back of the head there and see if you get off because Oregon's assisted suicide law makes murder legal.

[Almondjoy]

It's amazing to me that people have no problem letting an 18 year old make the decision to go to the military but they don't trust another person on whether or not they want to end their life.

Since we are so ready to force people not to make a choice to go to hell.. should we make sure that anyone who joins the military believes in Jesus as well? Should we force our soliders to Christianity? Are we sending people to war where they can die in light of them not being Christians? Is that not the same thing?

God wanted us to have free will.. Man wants to take it away.

[TKDietz]

England was a monarchy with a state religion at the time William Blackstone wrote his commentaries. People were subjects of the King. We are not subjects of our government, nor do we have state religion we must follow. Whether a man's life is due to God is irrelevant in the question of whether we have a legal duty to live. That is something between a man and God.

[ohioWfan]

No. They are not the same thing at all. You are using a liberal argument.

The person given the death penalty is guilty of taking someone else's life, and is being punished (hint...PENALTY) for what he or she has done.

The terminal patient in Oregon is being murdered by a doctor, guilty of no crime deserving death.

The fact that they may want to die is irrelevant to what is being done. If I say to my friend or family member, "Shoot me because I don't want to live any longer" they are still guilty if they do it.

It is wrong to take innocent life. It always has been, and always will be, regardless of what 6 'moderate' and liberal SC justices say.

And people claiming to be conservative, but supporting this very liberal decision need to think again about its consequences.

[highball]

It is wrong to take innocent life.

That is not what is happening here.

The law allows the doctor to assist the patient in taking his own life. Nobody is doing this "to" the patient.

It is not "conservative" to want to keep the government out of the doctor/patient relationship. If the patient consents to the procedure, and the doctor is willing, and the state allows it, what right does the Federal Government have to overrule the state and stick its nose in?

[ohioWfan]

As long as the person dying has not been sentenced to death by law, he or she IS innocent.

In this case, the state government of Oregon has chosen to violate the laws of God as understood by the Founding Fathers in our Founding documents.

It is a parallel to slavery. If the state violates higher laws......which the state of Oregon is doing........ the Federal Government has every right, according to the Constitution, to intervene.

And your argument about the death penalty was a liberal argument. Sorry if that offended you, but I've heard it too often from leftists to let that specious argument go by unchallenged on a conservative forum.

[firewalk]

Let's not get spun up and start losing track of what really happened here...

The Court did not uphold Oregon's assisted suicide law so much as it shot down the ham-fisted attempt to overturn it by the Justice Department. There is an enormous difference between the two.

exactly

[arasina]

su-i-cide
1. The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself.

It's not suicide if someone else does it for you. Let's say I'm having severe emotional and psychological problems that are causing me extreme pain and I think I want to die. Got the needle ready for me? Will you do it? Do you have a Constitutional 'right' to do so? Would you assist by giving a not so gentle push off the highway overpass? Help me out here.

[trisham]

Correct.

The Oath

By Hippocrates

Written 400 B.C.E

Translated by Francis Adams

I SWEAR by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!

http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/hippooath.html

[bvw]

That England had a state religion is immaterial to the relevence of Blackstone's comments in all cases. That England was a Monarchy is also not relevant, for any Government derives its just authority by accordance with Natural Law, that is, by accordance with the Divine expectations for governments.

Amoung those authorities proper to a government, primary among them is "To establish Justice". Yes, the second of the Preamble's scope of charter statements. (The first "To form a more perfect Union" is existential. The Government must first exist and survive.)

The "Justice" is that duty of proper governments formed amoung men as understood in the context of those times, and that means derived from English common law, especially as law was described and elucidated by Blackstone, and in that meaning Life is a duty due G-d and the king-surrogate, the new Nation.

[antiRepublicrat]

Taking another human life is wrong. And any society that wants to remain strong must honor that.

Be careful of your wording, as that applies to the death penalty and war. Unless of course you meant to include those.

[TKDietz]

"It is wrong to take innocent life. It always has been, and always will be, regardless of what 6 'moderate' and liberal SC justices say."

I bet you a dollar you'd back off of this if I started talking about the right circumstances. How about dropping nuclear bombs on Japan in WWII? You know thousands of innocent children were killed. Killing people is murder unless the killing is somehow justified. You would say it is justified in war, even the killing of innocent people if that is unavoidable. Would you think it murder if while retreating from an imminent enemy advance in war a mortally wounded comrade begged you to shoot him and end it so he would suffer no more and so he would not spend his last few moments on this planet being tortured by the enemy? I think helping some terminally ill person in great pain commit suicide is a justified killing. The law in most states would consider that murder. The people in Oregon voted to allow assisted suicide in these certain limited cases. They decided that this is not murder. If their law says it's not murder, it's not murder.

We can argue about this forever. We can argue about what would be murder in God's eyes, or in natural law, or in the actual codified law or that found in common law. If we are just looking at it within the context of that law which is codified in our statutes, it's pretty easy in most instances to determine what is murder and what is not. An argument on that can in most cases resolved pretty darned quickly. It's not so easy when we are making some sort of religious arguments, or even a "natural law" argument. We'd either fight over abstract principles or over who has the "right" religious views. You are going to call this assisted suicide murder no matter what I or anyone else says, because I suspect of your religious views. That is your prerogative. I'm just never going to agree with you on that point so there really isn't much point in continuing this discussion.

[antiRepublicrat]

Here, without a monarch, a man's life is due G-d and his country, and a man may not presume to give it up on his own.

That was in an environment where the people were subjects of the king. The thinking was that people are not truly free, but always have a master, and they are accountable to that master. That concept has no bearing on US constitutional law.

Blackstone also supported laws against recusant Catholics, saying that their loyalty to the Pope prevented them from being loyal subjects of the crown. This is also anathema to our ways.

[highball]

In this case, the state government of Oregon has chosen to violate the laws of God as understood by the Founding Fathers in our Founding documents.

Nonsense. "Understood by the Founding Fathers" is a meaningless phrase. Either the power is given to the Federal Government in the Constitution, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's reserved to the states. As in this case.

The "laws of God" are not the province of the Constitution. God does not appear anywhere in that august document. The Founders did not enshrine the Bible into civil law.

If you're going to invoke some soft sense of what the Founders "intended," then you have to admit Jefferson's Wall of Separation as solid and binding. Myself, I'll stick to what the Founders actually included in the Constitution.

And your argument about the death penalty was a liberal argument.

What argument about the death penalty? I didn't say anything about that. You must have me confused with someone else.

[TKDietz]

"Do you have a Constitutional 'right' to do so?"

I don't know if you think the Supreme Court just created a Constitutional right to commit suicide, but that is not what they did. They just said that the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) "does not allow the Attorney General to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide under state law permitting the procedure." This does not create a Constitutional right to commit suicide or Constitutional right to assist someone else in doing so. It just leaves it up to the states, which is exactly what should have happened. Too bad they've allowed the feds to trample all over the sovereign powers of the states in so many other areas, that's a whole other matter.

[antiRepublicrat]

It is perversive to assume that the Founders believed that our rights came from Man or that the Bill of Rights *created* any rights rather than merely *declaring* them.

I agree, but there is another source, natural rights as often mentioned by Jefferson, where it is an axiom that we have these rights by virtue of being human.