Pubdate: Wed, 18 Jan 2006
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

A STATE'S RIGHT TO ASSISTED SUICIDE

By allowing Oregon's assisted-suicide law to stand, the U.S. Supreme 
Court says a person with a terminal illness may make a deeply 
personal decision about his or her life. We support such a law. The 
ruling would have been better, however, had it also helped define the 
constitutional limit of federal power.

Oregon's law allows a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of 
pain-killing drugs if certain conditions are met. First, the patient 
must want to die. Second, the doctor has to certify that the patient 
is sick, can't be cured and has fewer than six months to live. Third, 
a second doctor has to agree. Finally, the prescribing doctor cannot 
administer the drugs. The law affects only a tiny group. Under it, 37 
patients were assisted in ending their lives in 2004. That is 10 in a 
million. We have heard no outcry against this from the people of 
Oregon, who voted for this measure twice. Clearly, this is a law they want.

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft didn't want it. He 
declared that suicide is not a legitimate medical practice, and set 
federal power against the power of Oregon. The dispute went to the 
Supreme Court, under the name of the current attorney general, 
Alberto Gonzales.

The 6-3 ruling in Gonzales v. Oregon is about how to interpret the 
Controlled Substances Act. It was not about the broader and more 
interesting question of whether assisted suicide is any of the 
federal government's business. Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent 
raised that issue and cast it aside, saying that if the federal 
government can ban marijuana, it can ban assisted suicide.

We don't think assisted suicide should be a federal issue. We did not 
support the court's decision last year, in Gonzales v. Raich, that 
made a federal issue of California's law allowing doctors to 
prescribe marijuana to the chronically ill. That seemed the sort of 
question California could decide for itself.

Tuesday's ruling would have been better had it stated that assisted 
suicide is a question Oregon could decide for itself.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom