Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Assisted Suicide Law
Good news indeed. The Roberts Court’s first major decision was a bitch-slap to the Bush administration and former Atty General John Ashcroft, who had sought to take legal action against doctors who aided patients commit suicide.
Beyond the implications for doctors in Oregon, this ruling is also a blow to the “unitary executive.” In the majority opinion, the Court denies the executive the right to claim unenumerated authority.
It was a 6-3 decision with Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas dissenting (of course). But even if Alito had been on the court, the good guys still would have won in a 5-4 decision.
For more details and the White House response, join me across the break.
(CP SP, DK, MLW)
From the Los Angeles Times:
The White House expressed its displeasure with the ruling and said that the Justice Department was looking into the decision.
“We are disappointed at the decision,” said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. “The president remains fully committed to building a culture of life.”
Sure he does. The President is all about the culture of life… except for the death penalty, the poor in New Orleans, torture, and a little thing called WAR.
Here is the back story on the case (from the same LA Times story):
In 1994, Oregon’s voters approved the Death with Dignity Act, which authorized doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to dying people who requested it.
In the past decade, more than 200 people have used medication to end their lives.
The Supreme Court itself appeared to endorse the state’s right to take such a step in 1997. Then, the justices said unanimously that while the Constitution did not give individuals a “right to die,” states were free to make such decisions on their own.
But some social conservatives, including then Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) and Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), strongly opposed the notion of doctors giving patients medicine that would end their lives. They urged the Clinton administration’s Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to take action against Oregon and its doctors.
Yet again we see how conservatives are for states rights only when it suits them.
[Reno] refused, saying she did not have the authority “to displace the states as the primary regulators of the medical profession.”
But shortly after taking office in 2001, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft reversed Reno’s decision and declared that a doctor’s use of legal drugs to bring a life to an end did not serve a “legitimate medical purpose.” The attorney general said Oregon’s doctors who persisted in the face of his edict would lose their right to prescribe medication.
This was another case of this administration claiming authority it does not have.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said Ashcroft had claimed for himself an “extraordinary authority” to regulate medicine, a power Congress had not given him. Kennedy said the administration’s claim “delegates to a single Executive officer a radical shift of authority from the states to the federal government to define the medical practice in every locality.” When Congress passed the drug trafficking laws, it “did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance,” he concluded.
That is why this case is a blow for the “unitary executive.” The executive cannot claim authority it has not been granted by the constitution or congress. Hopefully, this balance on the court will be reflected in future rulings on the unitary executive.