Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Assisted Suicide

Today, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the assisted suicide case that pitted John Ashcroft against the Oregon law that allows Dr.s to assist terminally ill patients to end their lives.

I agree with this ruling. The practice of medicine is traditionally the purvey of the states and the decision to ends one life if afflicted with a terminal disease is an individual right that should be upheld under the 9th and 10th amendments. I don't agree with the practice, but it is something that should be decided with ones family, doctors and clergy, not politicians in Washington.

Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Suicide Law
By GINA HOLLAND Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON Jan 17, 2006 — 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 federal authority to regulate doctors 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 prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribe overdoses, 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.

(Full Story)