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Supreme Court vote could be close
on challenge to Death With Dignity Law;
Neil Siegel says the Oregon case potentially
highlights differences in conservative viewpoints
Monday, October 3,
2005--Durham, N.C. -- The hot-button issue of physician-assisted suicide will be one of the
first to face the Supreme Court in its new term. Justices will hear
oral argument in Gonzales v. Oregon on Wednesday, Oct. 5, and the
decision could end up being a close one, says Duke University law
and political science professor Neil Siegel.
The question in the case, Siegel explained, is whether the federal
government can prevent implementation of Oregon’s Death with Dignity
Act, which legalizes physician-assisted suicide in the state. Former
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft directed Justice Department
officials to effectively kill Oregon’s law by using the federal
Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to suspend the prescription-writing
authority of physicians who assists in a suicide pursuant to state
law. The Ninth Circuit invalidated Ashcroft’s directive as beyond
federal authority to regulate doctors.
“When assisted suicide last came before the Court in 1997 in Washington
v. Glucksberg, none of the justices found a constitutional right to
death with dignity. But there was a lot of sentiment that this is
the kind of issue on which there should be state-by-state
experimentation,” Siegel said. “But if you believe that prescribing
drugs to help end someone’s life -- as opposed to trying to preserve
life -- is not within the legitimate confines of the practice of
medicine, it becomes reasonable for the attorney general to say this
is a misuse of state-prescribing authority, and Ashcroft’s
interpretation of the CSA could be upheld.”
Siegel clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the 2003 Supreme
Court term and served as special counsel to U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden
in preparation for Senate Judiciary Committee hearings regarding the
confirmation of new Chief Justice John Roberts.
Siegel noted that the Oregon case potentially highlights differences in
conservative viewpoints.
“There are issue-oriented conservatives who oppose abortion and
physician-assisted suicide, and there are ‘federalism conservatives’
who believe those matters should be dealt with state by state, not
as a matter of federal law. Some in the latter group may find
unattractive the idea that the federal government is interpreting
federal drug law in ways that eviscerate state experiments.”
Although the Oregon case involves a technical dispute over the scope of
federal law, Siegel finds a parallel to the recent Terri Schiavo
case. “Some prominent legal conservatives thought it was absurd for
the federal government to get involved, whereas many social
conservatives were concerned about the end-of-life issue, saying the
federal government should do whatever was needed to preserve Terri
Schiavo’s life.”
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