Pubdate: Wed, 18 Jan 2006
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Section: Pg A3
Copyright: 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Jess Bravin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

HIGH COURT UPHOLDS OREGON LAW BACKING DOCTOR-ASSISTED SUICIDE

WASHINGTON -- Reigniting a national debate over right-to-die issues, 
the Supreme Court barred the Justice Department from interfering with 
Oregon's law allowing physicians to help terminally ill patients end 
their lives. Voting 6-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining 
conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in dissent, 
the court ruled that the administration exceeded its authority under 
the 1970 Controlled Substances Act when it threatened to penalize 
doctors who prescribed life-ending drugs under the Oregon law, the 
only one of its kind in the country. The Justice Department said it 
was "disappointed" with the ruling. Advocates of the law said they 
expect the ruling to set off responses both in Congress and in 
states, such as California and Vermont, where similar measures are pending.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) said he was "deeply troubled" by the 
ruling and added, "I anticipate Congress will now take steps to solve 
the problems created by this decision." Peg Sandeen, executive 
director of the Death with Dignity National Center, a Portland, Ore., 
group that supports the law, predicted a political fight. "This is 
the same Congress that tried to intervene in Terri Schiavo's case," 
she said, referring to last year's right-to-die case in Florida. 
Since the Oregon law took effect in 1998, 208 patients have used it 
to end their lives, according to the state.

Over the years, the Supreme Court repeatedly has deferred to states 
in end-of-life decisions.

In 1990, the court upheld a Missouri statute barring the termination 
of life support from an incompetent patient without clear and 
convincing evidence that this was the patient's wish. Seven years 
later, the court upheld a Washington state law making assisted 
suicide a crime. Last year, the high court declined to intervene in 
the Schiavo case, despite special congressional action creating 
federal jurisdiction over a state judge's decision that Ms. Schiavo 
would have wanted her life support shut off. Yesterday's opinion came 
as a surprise because a different six-justice majority last year 
found a California law authorizing medicinal use of marijuana was no 
bar to prosecution of patients under federal narcotics laws. The 
majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy rested on a close reading 
of the Controlled Substances Act and drew distinctions between the 
situations in California and Oregon. Where the drugs used under the 
Oregon law are routinely prescribed painkillers, Congress had 
explicitly determined that marijuana had no accepted medical use. 
Thus, California's voter-approved Compassionate Use Act couldn't be 
invoked to stymie federal authorities who sought to prosecute patients.

The federal narcotics law, however, "targets only conventional drug 
abuse and excludes the attorney general from decisions on medical 
policy," Justice Kennedy wrote.

And while a "political and moral debate" surrounded 
physician-assisted suicide, Congress remained silent on the matter.

Thus, he wrote, the issue boiled down to "who decides whether a 
particular activity is in 'the course of professional practice' or 
done for a 'legitimate medical purpose,' " in the federal statute's language.

Because the act recognized the state role in regulating medicine, the 
majority found that Oregon's determinations should be honored unless 
explicitly overruled by Congress. To find otherwise, Justice Kennedy 
wrote, would empower the attorney general to "effect a radical shift 
of authority from the states to the federal government to define 
general standards of medical practice in any locality." John Paul 
Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 
Stephen Breyer joined the opinion, which upheld lower-court rulings.

Justice Scalia, writing for the dissenters, wrote the court should 
defer to the attorney general's determination that assisted suicide 
isn't a "legitimate medical purpose" for doctors to prescribe drugs.

Justice Scalia said "virtually every medical authority from 
Hippocrates to the current American Medical Association confirms that 
assisting suicide has seldom or never been viewed" as legitimate and 
no other state had authorized it. "The fact that many in Oregon 
believe that the boundaries of 'legitimate medicine' should be 
extended to include assisted suicide does not change the fact that 
the overwhelming weight of authority" holds otherwise, he wrote. In a 
separate dissent, Justice Thomas accused the majority of ignoring its 
own precedent -- from which he also dissented -- in the 
medical-marijuana case. As a matter of doctrine, "I agree with 
limiting the applications" of federal narcotics law "consistent with 
the principles of federalism and our constitutional structure," he 
wrote. "But that is now water under the dam."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman