U.S. high court upholds state's assisted-suicide law

I must agree with this decision, and it is great that our justices have the kahoonas to uphold this law.

A bit of history taken from www.bloomberg.com :

"The Death With Dignity Act lets doctors prescribe lethal drugs for an Oregon resident who has an incurable disease, is likely to die within six months and is mentally competent. A second physician must confirm the diagnosis. Doctors can only prescribe the drugs, not actually administer them.

Oregon voters approved the measure twice, in 1994 and 1997, the second time with 60 percent favoring the law. Court challenges kept the law on hold until October 1997.

In 2001 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reversed a decision by his Democratic predecessor, Janet Reno, and issued a directive saying that physicians who facilitated suicide by prescribing drugs would violate the Controlled Substances Act."

I feel that to live with dignity as a human being means having the choice to say when your quality of life has degraded enough that you choose the option of death. When my quality of life becomes such that I can no longer function as I do now, or am in such 24/7 pain that nothing can ease - then it's time for me to pass over to Summerland. The guidelines that they have set forth are fair.

What our government must ensure by giving us this right is that assisted-suicide remains the individual 's choice and not a decision set down in laws or by others whereby strangers determine a 'must die' in the equation.

I sincerely hope that this is not the final word on this issue. There is still a lot of work to be done to better define the issues and to assist the movement to take hold in other states within our fine Union.

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U.S. high court upholds state's assisted-suicide law: Washington - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a state law allowing doctor-aided suicide, overruling a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help patients die.

The U.S. right-to-die movement hailed the 6-3 ruling, which upheld an Oregon law that lets doctors prescribe - though not administer - deadly doses of certain drugs to terminally ill patients.

It was a setback for President George W. Bush, whose government has sought since 2001 to use federal drug control laws to criminalize Oregon doctors who applied the law.

'More and more Americans are demanding a greater say in how they live and how they die,' said Peg Sandeen, executive director of the Death with Dignity National Center, a group that supports assisted suicide.

'The justices of the Supreme Court got it right when they stated that personal medical decisions are best made by patients and physicians, not by lawyers and legislators.'

However, the ruling on Oregon's Death with Dignity Act does not decide the broader question of whether the federal government has the authority to declare state-aided suicide illegal.

The right-to-die debate captivated the United States last spring when the parents and the husband of a brain-damaged woman, Terri Schiavo, fought over whether she should be allowed to die.

The case, which made its way to the highest levels of government and was reviewed by the Supreme Court, ended when her husband ordered her feeding tube to be removed.

Tuesday's split decision in the Oregon case shows that the topic remains highly divisive.

The court's majority concluded that under the U.S. federal system, national drug-control laws apply to illegal drug dealing, but not to 'the practice of medicine generally'.

Oregon voters approved the assisted-suicide law twice, most recently in 1997.

In the dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia - one of the most conservative judges - said, 'If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death.'

New chief justice John Roberts joined the dissent, his first since the Bush appointee joined the court in October. His views are being watche closely and his position on this case could give a glimpse into his philosophy as a Supreme Court justice.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the ruling disappointing.

Bush 'remains fully committed to building a culture of life, a culture of life that is built on valuing life at all stages', he said.