Top Court Allows Oregon Suicide Law
In this file photo from October, Oregon resident Ruth Gallaid stands in front of the Supreme Court to show her support for physician-assisted suicide.
An astonishing oxymoron occurred at The Supreme Court yesterday:
Bloomberg,
Roberts Role in Suicide, Execution Cases Hints at Court FutureRoberts yesterday joined Scalia and Thomas in dissenting from a 6-3 ruling that bolstered an Oregon law allowing doctor- assisted suicide. Last week, he joined the majority in a 5-4 decision that reinstated a California death sentence.
Neither case directly involved a constitutional question, and in neither did Roberts write a separate opinion. Howard called it "striking'' that Roberts joined Scalia's dissent in the Oregon case. Scalia said doctors who prescribed a lethal dose of drugs to terminally ill patients weren't engaged in a "legitimate medical purpose.'' Scalia said the court should have deferred to the administration's interpretation of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act.
So let me get this straight: Roberts is for people dying unless they want to die? Is he saying that Oregon must not use drugs to let people die peacefully, but California can? Yes, yes I know the issues in the death penalty case were not about whether the death penalty was Constitutional, nor did the Oregon case determine that one had a Constitutional right to die, but I love the oxymoron.
