Author Topic: Oyez, Oyez The AH Supreme Court is now in session: Gonzales v. Oregon (Read 833 times)

Holden McGroin · « **Reply #15 on:** October 06, 2005, 06:31:22 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by midnight Target
I'm all for States Rights and the government staying out of things.

this time.

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.

J_A_B · « **Reply #16 on:** October 06, 2005, 06:56:39 PM »

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

Toad · « **Reply #17 on:** October 06, 2005, 07:44:58 PM »

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?

SOB · « **Reply #18 on:** October 06, 2005, 08:05:27 PM »

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.

BluKitty · « **Reply #19 on:** October 06, 2005, 08:30:48 PM »

"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.

Delirium · « **Reply #20 on:** October 06, 2005, 09:05:57 PM »

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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.

Yeager · « **Reply #21 on:** October 06, 2005, 09:58:28 PM »

The state will prevail. The threshold for federal intervention just isn't breached. Not on this.

Gunslinger · « **Reply #22 on:** October 06, 2005, 10:25:09 PM »

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.

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #23 on:** October 06, 2005, 10:30:01 PM »

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.

Gunslinger · « **Reply #24 on:** October 06, 2005, 10:33:14 PM »

Quote

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

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #25 on:** October 06, 2005, 10:39:11 PM »

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.

Toad · « **Reply #26 on:** October 06, 2005, 11:26:21 PM »

I think Justice O'Connor brought up that very point Grun.

crowMAW · « **Reply #27 on:** October 07, 2005, 12:02:40 AM »

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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.:

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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:

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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.

Dune · « **Reply #28 on:** October 07, 2005, 12:04:01 AM »

Quote

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.

Toad · « **Reply #29 on:** October 07, 2005, 12:42:23 AM »

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.