Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message hereI'm quite surprised that Roberts was in the dissent.
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.
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."'"
(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. ---
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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.
The states who choose life will stand in stark contrast.
In leaving it a matter for the states we find out who stands for righteousness and who stands for death.
See you at the March for Life in DC this Monday Jan 23rd
Might make perfectly good sense to some, but ya'll gonna have to 'splain it to me.
A completely unremarkable decision, except to the extent that the usually clear-thinking Scalia and Thomas dissented.
Then, you have the the Golden Gate Bridge commission trying to approve a $35million dollar or so, suicide barrier. This after all the people who thought Schiavo should have been "allowed" to die (a great number of which are concentrated in tolerant, diverse and inclusive S.F.)
So, in one breath, they want to prevent you from doing it and in the other, don't want you to be prevented from doing it.
After Alito is confirmed next week, we will be one vote closer. Gotta hope one of the other geezers retires before Bush leaves office.
So the liberals in OR can commit suicide...and the downside is?
Fine I can accept this decision. But now let's apply the same standard to abortion, sodomy, medical marijuana etc. Leave the issue to the states.
If I was termanally ill, I would want this option, I dont see why Conservatives are against this. Its your life.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here The Court made the right decision, even if it allows the state of Oregon to continue a repulsive practice.
Gutless.
Either they legalize all dispensation of drugs by states, giving states the power to set standards, or they federalize all of it. But this is more O'Connorism, the SCOTUS simply doing what they want when they want and making up bullshit law and keeping federal court jurisdiction even as they refuse to make a brightline decision.
GUTLESS.
Scalia has it dead on here:
"The Court contends that the phrase 'legitimate medical purpose' cannot be read to establish a broad, uniform federal standard for the medically proper use of controlled substances. But it also rejects the most plausible alternative proposition, urged by the State, that any use authorized under state law constitutes a 'legitimate medical purpose.' (The Court is perhaps leery of embracing this position because the State candidly admitted at oral argument that, on its view, a State could exempt from the CSA's coverage the use of morphine to achieve euphoria.) Instead, the Court reverse-engineers an approach somewhere between a uniform national standard and a state-by-state approach, holding (with no basis in the CSA's text) that 'legitimate medical purpose' refers to all uses of drugs unrelated to 'addiction and recreational abuse.' Thus, though the Court pays lipservice to state autonomy, its standard for 'legitimate medical purpose' is in fact a hazily defined federal standard based on its purposive reading of the CSA, and extracted from obliquely relevant sections of the Act." (cites omitted)
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.