Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Toad on October 06, 2005, 01:36:50 PM
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Oregon's Physician Assisted Suicide Law (http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=32970)
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft did not exceed his legal authority in 2001 when he said the federal Controlled Substances Act supersedes an Oregon law that allows physician-assisted suicide, attorneys for the Bush administration argued on Wednesday in opening arguments in the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Oregon, the Washington Post reports (Lane, Washington Post, 10/6).
The Death With Dignity Act, which became law in 1997, allows physicians to prescribe, but not administer, a lethal dose of prescription drugs to a terminally ill patient after two physicians agree that the patient has less than six months to live, has decided to die voluntarily and can make health care decisions (Greenhouse, New York Times, 10/6).
In 2001, Ashcroft issued a directive that said assisted suicide serves "no legitimate medical purpose" and warned physicians who prescribe controlled narcotics to assist in patient suicides under the Oregon law that they could face criminal penalties and license suspension or revocation.
U.S. District Judge Robert Jones in 2003 ruled that the federal government did not have the authority to overturn the law -- a decision upheld in May 2004 by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In November 2004, Ashcroft asked the Supreme Court to reverse the decision (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/3)....
...Oregon Attorney
Atkinson argued that congressional intent in the passage of CSA was to regulate recreational use of prescription drugs (Savage, Boston Globe, 10/6). He said, "They left the question of legitimate use to the state," adding, "What they had in mind was the traditional regulation of medicine by the states" (Henderson, Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/6). He said that Ashcroft had exceeded his authority as attorney general because states regulate the practice of medicine (Boston Globe, 10/6).
What's your verdict? Cross examinations are allowable.
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I'm all for States Rights and the government staying out of things.
this time.
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Hi Toad,
Thought I might add some fuel to the fire by posting links to three interesting commentaries on the ethical and social problems raised by Medical Euthanasia. ( I believe I may have linked to one or more before)
Life Unworthy of Life (http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/euthanasia/lifeunwo.htm)
No Deposit, No Return (http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/euthanasia/nodeposi.htm)
The Nazi Doctors (http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/euthanasia/thenazid.htm)
- SEAGOON
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I voted for the Death With Dignity Act in 97 and am proud that it passed.
The Feds need to get their noses out of State business.
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Doctor assisted no.
I'm all for letting people kill themselfs( I know a few I would recommend it:D ) without Govt interference.
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Personal opinion is good but what I was actually looking for was your "Constitutional" view.
Which side of this case do you think is on the correct Constitutional track?
Do the Feds have the right to regulate this and punish Doctors? Or is it none of the Feds business Constitutionally?
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Lets think on this:
On the one hand, Suicide is painless
But....on the other hand, I will simply die naturally.
I want to exist every single moment that I can, surrounded by the love of family and friends while I exist in this universe.
If I develope a fatal illness, then drugs will be made available in the final days and hours of my life to allow my body to die naturally with no pain.
I will not speed up my death by commiting suicide when there are drugs that can free me of my pain while my body dies.
I hope the feds throw out oregon suiciders just on principle. No one who is ill needs to kill themselves.
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I see this case as no different than the idiot decision by Ashcroft to outlaw the medical marijuana statute in California or the mindless idiocy of the Congress regarding the Schaivo case.
All are just hypocritical stances by the conservative right to pander to the christian coalition that helped elect them. All three are patently illegal and just plain wrong. Maybe we need some judges to legislate brains from the bench.
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Yeager, that post doesn't really address the Constitutionality of the issue.
MT, interesting that you bring "medical marijuana" into it. You know the SC split but Fed intervention was upheld under the Commerce clause.
Here, the Feds defend their action under the same clause. The CSA cites the impact of intrastate drug offences on "interstate commerce" and the "general welfare" of the American people.
So, is this a replay of "medical marijana"? If so, is there any reason to believe the Fed position will not be upheld? Roberts replaces Rhenquist but otherwise the cast is the same and "med marijuana" is fresh in their memories.
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Are we a Negative Liberal society or a Positive Liberal Society? Personally I feel that we are a negative liberal society governed by a Constitution. No where in the Constitution does it regulate medicine and the practice there of.
The Government doesn't have a leg to stand on in the case, as all Drug statue's that allow the prescription of drugs does not regulate the amount prescribed by the doctor. What is stopping the doctor's from prescribing Morphine, and "letting it slip" that ODing by a certain amount would kill you?
That being said, the law will be struck down, and more states rights will be kicked out the window.
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MT, interesting that you bring "medical marijuana" into it. You know the SC split but Fed intervention was upheld under the Commerce clause.
Here, the Feds defend their action under the same clause. The CSA cites the impact of intrastate drug offences on "interstate commerce" and the "general welfare" of the American people.
I'll give them that one, even though its a rather convoluted way of looking at it. However, I fail to see how the "offences" of these doctors in prescribing these medications affects "interstate commerce" in any way shape or form? Since none of the bordering states allow this to happen, are there any cases of people who live outside Oregon being treated by a doctor IN Oregon? If so, could that person receive these drugs? Then maybe I could see them having an "interstate commerce" argument. A stretch still, but theres an argument. As long as all patients are residents of Oregon though, the Feds have no case.
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federal vs. state rights? I don't care.
It seems to me it's an individual's right to die with what ever dignity they can muster.
Tired of feeling like we, as individual citizens, have to beg our rights back from the government.
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I not only support medically assisted suicide, but it should not be the business of the government to get involved.
If you have a terminal illness, or are in chronic umanagleable pain you should be allowed to ask your doctor for the only release available. They should not be given, however, without your primary MD's authorization, a secondary reviewing MD (someone who has not been involved in your healthcare), with a short period of review by the applicable State's Medical Review Board.
This is one of the things that really disappoints me with the Bush administation, heck, they never even offered any apologies when the autopsy for Terri Shiavo was released, even though the weight of her brain was far below the normal even when compared to someone who had been in a persistive vegatative state.
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well, unless the federal contsitution expressely allows a thing or forbids a thing then its left up to the state to decide its own laws.
But the federal controlled substance act appears to allow a lperson the opportunity to challenge oregon state based on existing law. I hope the oregonians can be brought back to their senses.
Suicide should not be allowed by law, imo. Of course you can go kill yourself, freewill. Doesn't mean its the right thing to do under the law.
just my opinion.
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Which leads to the question, "Is the Federal Controlled Substance Act itself constitutional?"
IMHO, there should be no laws restricting suicide whatsoever. It's my life to do with as I see fit.
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Originally posted by midnight Target
I'm all for States Rights and the government staying out of things.
this time.
:huh Isn't a state government a government?
IMHO, murder is generally a state crime, unless it is the murder of a federal officer or official.
If we choose to think assisted suicide is murder, then the federal government would not have jurisdiction anyway, with the noted exceptions.
If the state law decides to write its murder statue slightly differently from other states, as long as civil rights are not infringed, the federal government should not have a say.
I do not see where assisted suicide (where the dying request their own death) can be considered an infringement of rights of a dying person.
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For some reason or another, our medical establishment views quantity of life as more important than quality of life. It's considered okay to force a person in agony to stay alive.
Screw that.
If someone with no hope for recovery wants to commit suicide, he should have that option. Denying someone that last resort is IMO akin to torture. What other word is there to describe forcing a person to endure pain? It's called "care" to force a terminally ill patient to endure pointless months of agony. How disgusting.
I don't see how people can sleep well at night knowing they support forcing others to suffer. For what gain? So the patient can just die anyway later after weeks or months of suffering? That's not moral, and I won't subscribe to any belief system which suggests otherwise. I don't think it's "god's way", and if it is then I want nothing to do with such a sadistic god.
The Nazi references in Seagoon's links are off the mark and suggest an uncharacteristic lack of objectivity on his part. The Nazis killed people who wanted to live. I don't buy the "slippery slope" argument; it's a fallacy because there's a huge difference between giving someone a choice and making that choice for him.
J_A_B
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I suspected this would end up as a "right/wrong" discussion of "death with dignity" or "assisted suicide" or "voluntary euthanasia" or whatever you wish to call it.
That was not my intent. I was hoping more for a discussion of the "right" of the Feds to intervene and reverse Oregon's "Death with Dignity Act", Constitutionality of the CSA, States Rights, etc.
But... I guess it is what it is.
How about this... predictions of how the SC will rule on this one?
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I have no idea what they'll rule. But I hope they side with Oregonians who voted this into law not once, but twice.
I find it disgusting that anyone would think it OK to deny someone the ability to go peacefully with the help of their physician. Don't like it? That's just fine, you have the option not to do it. But mind your own business when it comes to other people and their health.
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"interstate commerce"
so.... aren't fireworks illegal in some states? ... fire hazards and all that....
Couldn't this illegal thing be moved over state lines? Or does it only count for drugs?
I'm am alllll for takeing away most of the Fed's so-called rights and giveing them to the States, let the locals make their own laws....
Not like the Washington centered Judical system will let that happen.
I'll bet if states were put in charge of most Tax funds, as it should be, most states would have a socialist health care system by now .....It's really an embaressment that we don't, and our poor have the same infant mortality rates as devloping nations.
enough ranting ... I'm all for more State power as opposed to Federal, but it won't happen through the FEDERAL supreme court.
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Originally posted by Toad
How about this... predictions of how the SC will rule on this one?
They'll rule in favor of the federal government... no doubt.
I would like to hear how they will word the decision, otherwise it would encourage the abolishment of abortion.
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The state will prevail. The threshold for federal intervention just isn't breached. Not on this.
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Ok personal views Aside I would say this is sticky constatutional subject.
I beleive the SC ruled that the right to suicide is not a constitutional right back in 97 and left it up to the states to decide.
The real case here isn't the right to suicide but the right to a "doctor assisted suicide"
If I were ruling on this I would have to say that doctors are healers and not killers. Ending life is not a cure to the disease.
The point being made about doctors not having the right to prescribe steroids to body builders is valid.
Personal views aside I'd say a person has the right to kill themselves but that the federal AND state govt should stay out of it. Doctors should not be allowed to prescribe leathal doses of medication in order to assist in a patients suicide.
The federal GOVT HAS the right to maintain this in the laws that Govn the FDA.
EDIT:
And before many of you continue to chime in on this you should actually READ what is being argued here.
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People should have the right to commit suicide.
I dont buy this "culture of life" argument for a second. If the same sick guy in the hospital bed begging to be put out of his pain by means of doctor assisted suicide by drugs somehow got a gallon of gasoline and set a dozen kindergarten kids on fire I bet the state would have no problem with him loosing his life by letrhal injection.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
People should have the right to commit suicide.
I dont buy this "culture of life" argument for a second. If the same sick guy in the hospital bed begging to be put out of his pain by means of doctor assisted suicide by drugs somehow got a gallon of gasoline and set a dozen kindergarten kids on fire I bet the state would have no problem with him loosing his life by letrhal injection.
Read the legal arguments. IT's about DOCTOR ASSISTED sucide.
The SC allready ruled that there is no constitutional right to commit suicide
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If it's legal for the state to order a doctor to inject poison into privite citizens, as happends in death row all the time, then it should be legal for privite citizens to request pison being injected in them by a doctor if they want to end their lives.
Doctors are involved in both cases.
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I think Justice O'Connor brought up that very point Grun.
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
The SC allready ruled that there is no constitutional right to commit suicide
Can you point to the case? I think that Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health is the closest case and it afirms that individuals are at liberty to deny themselves medical treatment even if it will certainly lead to their death. This is the basis for the Living Will.
This was decided under the Due Process Clause. However, I personally think that the little used 9th Amendment is sufficient.:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Our problem is that the US Bill of Rights never defines liberty eventhough the Declaration of Independence indicates that it is an unalienable right. Still, without a definition that ties liberty to the 9th Amendment, it is difficult to know what rights have been retained by the people. However, I personally think that the Founders certainly considered liberty to be one of those rights.
The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (which was penned the same year as the US Consitution) defines liberty as:
Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
If this is liberty and it is a right retained by the people, then suicide should be legal...assisted or otherwise.
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Originally posted by midnight Target
I see this case as no different than the idiot decision by Ashcroft to outlaw the medical marijuana statute in California or the mindless idiocy of the Congress regarding the Schaivo case.
All are just hypocritical stances by the conservative right to pander to the christian coalition that helped elect them. All three are patently illegal and just plain wrong. Maybe we need some judges to legislate brains from the bench.
TTHhhhbbtttt!! Yah big leftie weenie.
You know as well as I do that politicians from both sides of the isle in Washington have been expanding Federal control over State's rights forever. Anytime some state does something that offends the governing party's favorite PAC, it get's slapped down.
Christian Coalition. Heh. :p
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Given the makeup of the court, I think Oregon will lose. I think the ruling will be on the Commerce clause again.
I also think it'll be an incorrect ruling on a Constitutional basis. I think stuff like this stretches the Commerce clause so thin it would go around the world twice.
So, I think Sandman asked in another thread what rulings should be overturned; we can add this one to the other two recent ones, MedMaryJ and EminentTheftmain.
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To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes
Interesting article here (http://www.constitution.org/ussc/022-001jr.htm) on what the Founders understood the term "commerce" to mean.
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The purpose of controlled substance laws is to prohibit nonmedical and nonscientific use of certain drugs. Aschcroft didn’t really care about the use of specific drugs in this case, he was just using this law to stop what he’s really opposed to – assisted suicide. It just happens that the most humane way of assisted suicide uses controlled substances.
This would be like someone who is apposed to birth control trying to ban hysterectomies because the patient is anesthetized with controlled drugs.
I think the outcome will hinge on whether the court will accept that assisted suicide is a medical use. And I think you should defer to the attending physician-patient relationship here. Doctors are allowed to use approved drugs for purposes other than that for which they were approved. This includes scheduled drugs except for Schedule I.
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It does not seem that a state should allow the murder of an inocent man by anyone, especially a doctor.
On the face of it.. we either allow sucicide or not.
To me... "assisted suicide" should mean.... "hand me my 44 I'm too weak to get up" or... doctor telling patient... "these are for pain.. here is a script that is refillable at any time no questions asked... if you take more that 10 of em you will die"
I am against government interferance in states rights unless the state is stepping on constitutional rights of it's citizens. but...
I am not sure that murdering inocent citizens who are not dangerous to the state is the right of the state.
I am not even sure why the government feels that they can make suicide illegal or regulate the use of drugs tho.
lazs
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Crow this is what I read yesturday:
The key O’Connor vote
The Supreme Court eight years ago found that the dying have no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide. O’Connor provided a key fifth vote in that decision, which left room for state-by-state experimentation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9595961/
you guys can argue politics all you want but truth be told this is kind of a turf battle. Oregon wants doctors to be allowed to prescribe lethal doeses of medicine. The federal govt thinks this is their turf because it involves the use of drugs.
I think the article is referring to these two cases:
Vacco v. Quill
Washington v. Glucksberg
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Originally posted by lazs2
It does not seem that a state should allow the murder of an inocent man by anyone, especially a doctor.
Murder is a legal concept. According to the law, assisted suicide is not murder.
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I'm really confused! (I know no big suprise)
Bush is ok with executions but not ok with Doctor assisted suicide!
Why?
They are both assisted deaths.
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the Commerce clause is a really, REALLY big brush, and needs to be revisited, the way it in interpeted now it gives the fed govt power over any thing it wants.
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Originally posted by Mighty1
I'm really confused! (I know no big suprise)
Bush is ok with executions but not ok with Doctor assisted suicide!
Why?
They are both assisted deaths.
Due process?
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myelo... so if I were to leave out the word "murder" and substitute "the taking of an innocent life".... you would be ok with what I said?
mighty... you make no sense... that is like saying it is hypocritical to be against abortion on the basis that it is the killing of an innocent human but not be against the death penalty because it is the killing of person who is guilty of killing others.
I don't even see the problem... the doctor gives the patient a refilable at any time pain killer script that is lethal at a certain dose... the patient then either od's or not. It is not the decision of the doctor or... worse yet the state.
this is a stupid clash over semantics.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
myelo... so if I were to leave out the word "murder" and substitute "the taking of an innocent life".... you would be ok with what I said?
The doctor is not taking a life. He or she is prescribing a lethal drug so the patient can take their own life. Under no circumstances is the doctor allowed to administer the medication. That would be euthanasia, not assisted suicide.
But remember, this case is not about whether assisted suicide is constitutional or not, it's about whether it's an improper use of medication and violates federal drug laws.
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Funny that the state allows you to commit suicide, but won't let you pump your own gas - because Nanny has decreed that it's unsafe.
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Originally posted by john9001
the Commerce clause is a really, REALLY big brush, and needs to be revisited, the way it in interpeted now it gives the fed govt power over any thing it wants.
Pretty much right there. It does need top be restricted.
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10th amendment to the Constitution.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Funny that the state allows you to commit suicide, but won't let you pump your own gas - because Nanny has decreed that it's unsafe.
Oregon voters said no when in 1982 we were asked if we wanted self-serve. We also voted in DAS.