Posted on 04/22/2002 7:28:24 AM PDT by humbletheFiend
Euthanasia is currently legal in Oregon because citizens there have approved physician-assisted suicide in two separate referendums. But is illegal under federal law for doctors to abuse the prescription power by distributing drugs for illegitimate, non-medical purposes.
United States Attorney General John Ashcroft has challenged the legality of the dispensation in Oregon of lethal drugs, saying it was not a legitimate medical practice. In particular, he issued a directive, by his authority as chief law enforcement officer of the United States, faithfully executing the Controlled Substances Act by preventing doctors from issuing lethal prescriptions.
Last week, the federal government's attempt to enforce this law against the manifestly non-medical purpose of killing people was rejected by federal court in Oregon. It is an occasion to recall both the fundamental evil of euthanasia, and the stake America has in ending this immoral and unethical practice in Oregon.
The Declaration of Independence states plainly that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator – not by human choice – with certain unalienable rights, foremost among which is the right to life. If the Declaration of Independence states our national creed, there can be no right to take any innocent human life, not even one's own, for this is to deny the most fundamental right of all.
The right to life is unalienable. That means we may not justly trade it away for some perceived improvement in our material condition, as we might sell the title deed to our house or car. If we kill ourselves or consent to allow another to do so, we both destroy and surrender our life. We act unjustly. We usurp the authority that belongs solely to the Creator, and deny the basis of our claim to human rights.
If human beings can decide whose life deserves protection and whose does not, the doctrine of God-given rights is utterly corrupted. Euthanasia treats the right to life as though it were dependent on human choice, rather than on the Creator's eternal will. That is why euthanasia is always the unjust taking of a human life and a breach of the fundamental principles of our public moral creed.
By our American creed, therefore, physician-assisted suicide such as is currently legal in Oregon is a violation of the very foundation of all our civil rights.
In judging the actions of the United States attorney general, we must keep this fact clearly in mind. There can be no question on which the attorney general of the republic has a more solemn obligation to act with principled energy than on the Declaration issue of the unalienable right of the innocent to life itself. The Constitution, and all federal law, has the single and unifying purpose of constituting a federal regime of ordered liberty by which the people, in their God-given equality, govern themselves in dignity and justice.
The Controlled Substances Act prohibits physician dispensation of drugs for medically illegitimate purposes. It is a federal law, which means that its execution in the lives of the citizens of the nation is the responsibility of the federal government. Attorney General Ashcroft bears the weight of that responsibility and has rightly made the judgment that physicians cannot dispense federally controlled substances in order to end the lives of patients.
Can the voters of the state of Oregon decide for the federal government that killing people is a medically acceptable purpose?
The attorney general and the state of Oregon cannot simply agree to disagree on the matter. The attorney general has a federal law and a solemn duty to enforce it. That means that he, on behalf of the sovereign federal power, must distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate medical uses of controlled substances.
In the current situation, a physician who is dispensing a lethal dose to his "patient" may say, "I am using this controlled substance in a way that conforms with the proper understanding of medical practice." Attorney General Ashcroft can point to common sense, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States and disagree, saying, "Killing your patient is fundamentally opposed to the proper understanding of medical practice, because it is a profound injustice." The physician then points to the Oregon state euthanasia law, passed by the people of that state, and repeats that what he is doing is medically legitimate, according to the people of Oregon.
The question we face is whether the attorney general of the United States should form his understanding of the meaning of federal law, on a question bearing on the life or death of innocent citizens, by consulting the first principles of reason and American political justice, or by deferring to state referenda.
The legal question is clear enough. The interpretation of federal law cannot be dictated by state authorities. The interpretation of federal law is the business of the federal government, and the people who are competent to overrule federal authorities on such questions are the people of the whole nation, not of one state.
But euthanasia is no ordinary legal question. It goes to the heart of the nature and purpose of legitimate self-government. The State of Oregon is attempting to dictate to officers of the federal government an interpretation of federal law that violates the most basic natural – and hence most essential civil – right of all: the right to life. The state of Oregon is insisting, to speak plainly, on federal acceptance of the establishment of a new "peculiar institution."
But the original "peculiar institution," slavery, had already taken illegitimate root at the time of our national founding, and a painful prudence dictated that it be temporarily accepted lest the good of self-government itself should prove impossible. Oregon's new "peculiar institution" is a new cancer threatening the well being of the nation. Attorney General Ashcroft is right to refuse to yield the national conscience to this morbid revival of the right of states to repudiate the Declaration principle of human equality.
Very well said. "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
First, let me dispense the semantics issue I have, because it's really quite small. The fifth doesn't specifically mention states, but people. It starts with, "No person shall..." States aren't even mentioned, and aren't even the issue. What is at issue is the liberty of the individual, in this case.
If the argument stands that the federal government cannot pass laws against murder if necessary, then you are in effect saying that the federal government has no power to enforce the provisions of its constitution, and is a dead letter anyway.
The fourteenth amendment mentions the state, to countermand the fallacious argument being made at the time, having far too much acceptance to be ignored, that the Bill of Rights only applied to the Federal Government. At the end of the fourteenth amendment, in case there was still any doubt, it states that, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
In your examples there is no duty in with regard to persons in general. Yet for example, a man would have a right to recover property which belongs to him, and which has been unlawfully taken out of his possession. The unlawful possesor would have a duty to return the property. It is generally considered a duty of the state to enforce contracts, which if the law is in one sense an expression of our corporate or collective will, then "we" would have a duty to enforce the contract, with force if necessary.
...Minors have unalienable rights, however they are held in proxy by their parent or guardian until the minor becomes of legal age to exercise them. Minors lack capacity to enter into contracts of any kind. A child's parents can exercise the child's rights, but only in their child's best interests. Should a child be terminally ill and needlessly suffering with no real hope of recovery or pain treatment, a parent who has consent from the child could theoretically assert the child's legal right to euthanasia. In such rare cases, great care and supervision should be exercised to ensure that the parent is acting in the best interests of the child.
We know explicitly from the Declaration of Indepence and the Constitution that children have the right to life. This right is not held in proxy by parents or anyone else. It is absolute and unqualified. The child needs to be of no legal age to excercise this right. It is a right possessed simply by virtue of the fact of the child's being.
In your scenario of a terminally ill child, you are going to have a court deciding what is "in the best interest of the child". Since a court could decide either way, for life or for death, the "right" of the child to be killed is not unqualified. If a court by authority and right can take it away, where the child has committed no crime, then it is not absolute or inalienable.
Think of an instance where the parents by proxy would decide to exercise the "right" of the child to be euthanized, and where the child does not consent. "Mommy, please don't kill me!" Since minors are not considered to have the ability to give informed consent, what would be the "best interest of the child" in such a case? A family court judge could decide the case either way, could he not?
It seems to me that the concept of euthanasia killing as an inalienable right turns traditional concepts of law upside down.
Cordially,
Your right to life is not just to live? Says who? The right to life is the right to be alive.
It's the right to liberty that enables you control your own life. And that right cannot supersede the right to life.
.I certainly question the motives of one who would deny another the opportunity to choose the way one ends one's life.
Is it "compassion" that makes you want to see terminally ill people suffer as their lives are artificially prolonged?
Is it your 'sanctity of life' ethic that wants to see people starve themselves to be spared the raveges of dread disease?
At times like these, we don't treat our pets as badly as we treat our so-called loved ones.
Perhaps you just love to kill, for the thrill of killing.
That false assertion shows the corruptness of your logic. I'll bet you like to put yourself off as a love-filled Christian to those who don't know better.
What kind of low life you must be to take an issue of suicide by teminally ill people and then call me one who kills for thrills.
May you be spared the need to consider a suicide to escape a prolonged, painful disease-ridden death even if you would deny that to others.
Even a third of the angels rebelled.
Be sure to note the yeoman responses by Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
To voluntarily enter an institution in which you are required to live by certain rules and restrictions does not give up your right to liberty. In the first place, you exercised your right to liberty by choosing to go there. In the second place, entering such an institution does not erode the protection of liberty by law.
To truly destroy your right of liberty, you would have to destroy the legal protections of that liberty. This means you remove all legal codes from society on which you could make a claim against those who would infringe on your right to liberty. If you do that, you are not just hurting yourself, you are hurting every other person in your society.
The same thing goes with the right to property and life. If you fight to dissolve your claim to these rights, you remove the claim for everyone.
First you attack my motives, then call me a 'low-life' for pointing out that it would be possible to make invidious conclusions about your own. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
The fact that you have had a painful loss, in which a loved one was not properly treated, is no reason to license the medical profession to murder anyone they care to, without a hearing.
I think that after they did this, they were called by another term, no longer 'angels'.
Even more reason to hold fast to the Founders' assertion.
Certainly. That is why I mentioned voluntary contracts. Should a contract of this nature be made and broken, then the law would be correct in enforcement. In this case, this means that if you make a contract for a physician to assist your suicide and he reneges, you (or your estate) can pursue him for damages. I don't see how any of this is relevant to your right to enter such a contract to begin with.
We know explicitly from the Declaration of Indepence and the Constitution that children have the right to life. This right is not held in proxy by parents or anyone else. It is absolute and unqualified. The child needs to be of no legal age to excercise this right. It is a right possessed simply by virtue of the fact of the child's being. In your scenario of a terminally ill child, you are going to have a court deciding what is "in the best interest of the child". Since a court could decide either way, for life or for death, the "right" of the child to be killed is not unqualified. If a court by authority and right can take it away, where the child has committed no crime, then it is not absolute or inalienable.
I believe you are confusing the child's right to keep others from ending his life against his consent (his right to life), with his right to contract others to end his life with his consent.
In other words, if the child voluntarily consents and contracts for an assisted suicide (with parental exercise of such right), his right to not be murdered against his will has not been violated.
Think of an instance where the parents by proxy would decide to exercise the "right" of the child to be euthanized, and where the child does not consent. "Mommy, please don't kill me!" Since minors are not considered to have the ability to give informed consent, what would be the "best interest of the child" in such a case? A family court judge could decide the case either way, could he not?
Minors should not be considered to have the ability to give informed consent without the concurrent consent of the parents. I certainly would not argue for euthanasia of any person, much less a child, who does not consent. In fact, my entire concern is that the individual be given full and total control over their actions. I understand the slippery slope effect is the main concern here, and I too share it. I am completely and totally against anyone being euthanized against their own will.
If anything, a child would be given additional protection than most people because he would have parents to act as a check against working against his own best interests.
It's implicit. If no person can be deprived of life without due process of law, that means no one and no thing can take a person's life without due process of law.
It's not that hard a concept to understand.
That's right. It's the right to decide whether or not I stay alive.
Says who?
Says me. It's my life, and no one else's. I'll live it as long as I like, and not a moment longer. If the day comes that I am terminally ill and face a hopeless, painful and lingering death, I'll take my own life whenever I damned well please and with all due respect, I really don't care what you, the State or anyone else has to say about it. Interfere with such a man at your own peril, because he hasn't a thing to lose except his own suffering.
Go ahead and take your own life, then. But don't force government to sanction it.
And you still may, and you do not need the sanction of the state to do it. All you would need to do, God forbid, is simply purchase a firearm and carry out your wishes. After all, who on Earth could punish you for it after you have already departed? However, do not expect the state to sanction suicide by permitting doctors to serve as executioners.
In the meantime, you are still free to set up living wills and springing durable powers of attorney to let your wishes be known in the case you are incapacitated. You may and ought to do so now, so that your wishes may be followed should you be unable to perform that final grand design on your own life.
I see. Because of other's reservations, I am to be legally restricted in my choice of method of my own demise. Rather than face a peaceful, painless death by painkillers, I should be forced to stare down the barrel of a gun and endure the exhilarating thrill of 00 buck tearing my skull apart. Later, my family should have to encounter and clean up the mess, and my parting gift to the world would be a statistic for Sarah Brady to use to campaign for gun control.
Excuse me if I don't take you up on this offer.
I cannot find the words that you refuted, other than your disagreement with him about the possiblity of human free will as the basis for our rights.
You wrote that Keyes presumes to know our creators basis for authority is a.... false claim. You are making a dogmatic claim of certainty about Keyes' claim of knowledge: "And he repeats his 1st claim, that he knows the basis of our rights. He does not."
My first point is that you are saying with absolute certainty that Keyes does not know something, and further, that his claim is false.
My second point is this: How do you know for certain that Keyes does not know the basis of our rights? Even if the exact identity of the 'creator' has been a matter of some dispute, the existence of a dispute between any number of people does not logically entail that Keyes necessarily has no knowledge of the creator's basis for authority. The existence of a dispute says nothing at all about Alan Keye's state of knowlege, or even whether he is correct or incorrect.
How do you know for certain that Keyes does not know the basis of our rights?
Cordially,
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