Death with Dignity: Assisted Suicide
From the Desk of Mace

The United States Supreme Court in the case GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al. v . OREGON et al. upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law on January 17 2006 rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people trumped federal authority to regulate doctors. New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration,(SURPRISE) dissenting with the majority for the first time.

That means the administration improperly tried to use a federal drug law to prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribe overdoses. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft vowed to do that in 2001, saying that doctor-assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose."The ruling was a reprimand to Ashcroft, who in 2001 said that Oregon physicians would be punished for helping people die under the law. He once again was meddling where he should not have been.

Justice Kennedy said the "authority claimed by the attorney general is both beyond his expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design."

The ruling backed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Ashcroft's "unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide."

Ashcroft had brought the case to the Supreme Court on the day his resignation was announced by the White House in 2004. The Justice Department has continued the case, under the leadership of his successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

Scalia of course dissented from the courts ruling. He said that federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine. He did not think that 'legitimate medical purpose' includes the prescription of drugs to produce death. Scalia said the court's ruling "is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal government's business. It is easy to sympathize with that position."

Oregon's law covers only extremely sick people - those with incurable diseases, whom at least two doctors agree have six months or less to live and are of sound mind. This is similar to the medical directive that specifies that no life support means are to be used.( Commonly known as the Do Not Resuscitate or DNR) But in this case, instead of a prior directive that takes place once you are incapacitated, people of sound mind can avoid the debilitating, degradation and deterioration that is necessary to employ the DNR .

I think it is none of the Feds business whether we have the right to end our own suffering while of sound mind. Of course former Attorney General Ashcroft ( the Bush administration's Big Brother) who believes that no conversations between citizens should be private, search warrants did not need to be authorized by judges and the Government was always right;.was the driving force behind the Feds threatening Oregon Doctors ( I'm aware that the Hippocratic Oath says "Do no harm: but isn't alleviating pain following the spirit of the oath?) who participated in this humanitarian efforts to assist terminally ill individual from ending their pain voluntarily. These patients will have the ability to gracefully transition from their human existence to whatever afterlife there is. They will be able to choose the time and place, say goodbye to all of their relatives and not subject their loved ones to their deterioration and watching their vitality ebbing away to make the person virtually a shadow of his or her former self!

I'm not advocating suicide but as the Bob Dylan song Turn, Turn Turn says."...A time to be born, a time to die" The right to terminate one's life is the ultimate right to self determination. Shouldn't we have the right to decide when and how we want to end our own life, especially if we are terminally ill and our quality of life is wracked with pain and steadily deteriorating? I'm not advocating suicide, but if it is compassionate to end the suffering of our beloved animals, doesn't this compassion extend to ourselves?

The Oregon Death With Dignity Act (ODWDA) exempts from civil or criminal liability state-licensed physicians who, in compliance with ODWDA's specific safeguards, dispense or prescribe a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of a terminally ill patient.

The Untied States Supreme court held that The Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which was enacted in 1970 with the main objectives of combating drug abuse and controlling legitimate and illegitimate traffic in controlled substances, criminalizes, inter alia , the unauthorized distribution and dispensation of substances classified in any of its five schedules.(This was mainly aimed at "Street Drugs, Heroin, Methamphetamine LSD, Marijuana etc) CSA does not allow the Attorney General to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide under state law permitting the procedure.

This is another example of the Federal Government over reaching and attempting to insinuate itself into our lives. There are supposedly confidential medical records that are floating around the internet. The Federal Government wants to legislate National Identity cards that Citizens MUST carry (Papers please! Like the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany) Maybe the next step is everyone is micro chipped from birth so the Feds know exactly where we are at all times. Maybe with the advances in Technology our thoughts can be monitored, controlled and modified if we have the audacity, effrontery and/or brazen temerity to think "Un-American" thoughts.

Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but that doesn't mean that they are not out to get us.. It's said that only 8% of things we worry about actually happen. I'm hoping that my worst fears of the ultra intrusive federal Government that strips our rights away with impunity is just an overreaction of a Civil Libertarian with an overactive imagination. Time will tell. (Time heals all wounds or wounds all heels!). I think the US Supreme Court got it right this time. Remember they are not final because they are right. They are right because they are final!

In the words of Sims Luckett "This country was neither founded nor freed by the well behaved." Dissent is what makes America strong! Lets not extinguish what we have been fighting for : FREEDOM