WASHINSTON-The U.S. Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts dissenting, upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die. The 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people trumped federal authority to regulate doctors.
Sometimes I can't believe what I type. Doctors helping people to commit suicide. *shakes head in amazement*
Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented. Scalia, writing the dissent, said that federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine.
"If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death," he wrote.
The media has falsely presented this as the Bush administration trying to overrule the Oregan law. Not true, as Wesley J. Smith pointed out here:
Not only did the Bush administration not ask the federal appeals court to
overturn the Oregon law, it has never asked any court anywhere to strike down
Oregon's law. Indeed, even if Ashcroft prevails in the case, doctors could still
assist patient suicides under state law. Moreover, if doctors prescribed drugs
to cause death not covered by the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), they would
face no federal administrative sanction. So if the case isn't the legality of
assisted suicide in Oregon, what is it about? No, not "states' rights" as the
media and assisted-suicide advocates claim, but something we don't often hear
much about — "federal rights" — specifically the ability of the United States
government to enforce a uniform and nationally consistent standard governing the
legitimate medical use of narcotics regulated under the CSA.
In scrolling through the statistics on the Oregon law I found this one the most interesting, Of the most frequently mentioned end-of-life concerns of the patients who used PAS during 2004, the number one reason was "a decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable." (92%)
I would have thought it would be physical pain. But it wasn't. Should we say to people that feel they can no longer participate in activities they enjoy that that is enough? Go ahead and die. Heaven forbid we do something to make your life enjoyable. Easier to just throw some drugs at you for you to overdose on.
Lovely.
Even if this particular case wasn't about the specific legality of PAS, it still brings us to that painful subject. As I have said before, I volunteered at a nursing home many years ago and visited my grandma and great aunt in one as well. Sickness is not enjoyable, but I have to wonder that if people who are terminally ill really felt loved and cared for by those with them, would they want to leave them sooner rather than later?
Turn off the machines, make them as comfortable as possible and let nature take it's course. But most importantly....love them. Care for them. Let them feel that they mattered in this world. Don't push them out the door because they don't feel they matter anymore.
What does it say about us as a society if we keep making laws that rid us of "burdens?"
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