2008 Woodie Awards
Starrick: Court Upholds State's 'Right to Die'
Jesse Starrick, op-ed columnist
Issue date: 2/6/06 Section: Opinions
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In a remarkable decision handed down on Jan. 17, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold Oregon's Death with Dignity Act in the case of Gonzales v. Oregon. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, on behalf of the Bush Administration, appealed the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared that the Oregon state law legalizing physician-assisted suicide was constitutional.
The Federal government claimed that the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), which allows for the regulation of various drugs, gave them the authority to dictate how the state of Oregon may dispense them, regardless of the wishes of the state's voters and the fact that the Oregon law specifically dictates how and under what circumstances the drugs can be administered to terminally ill patients who choose to end their lives.
It is important to note that Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, permitting physician-assisted suicide, was passed by a 51 percent majority of voters in 1994, and an effort to repeal the law in 1997 was rejected by a 60 percent majority.
The Supreme Court ruled that the CSA does not allow the Attorney General to prohibit physicians from prescribing regulated drugs for the purpose of physician-assisted suicide, under the Oregon law permitting the procedure.
The majority opinion pointed to the fact that the CSA was designed to specifically target "conventional drug abuse," and does not allow the Attorney General to involve himself in medical policy decisions.
Above all else, the CSA presumes - and I would argue that the U.S. Constitution mandates - that issues surrounding the medical profession are best governed under the police powers of the individual states.
The majority also pointed to a 1971 regulation drafted by the Attorney General requiring that every prescription for a controlled substance "be issued for a legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice," and then rhetorically questioned who exactly is responsible for deciding whether a physician's actions are "for a legitimate medical purpose."
The three dissenters - Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia and Thomas - argued that, in their estimate, the term "legitimate medical purpose" surely excludes prescribing drugs to produce death.
Scalia, who authored the dissent, commented that "The prohibition or deterrence of assisted suicide is certainly not among the enumerated powers conferred on the United States by the Constitution…But then, neither is prohibiting the recreational use of drugs or discouraging drug addiction among the enumerated powers. From an early time in our national history, the federal government has used its enumerated powers, such as its power to regulate interstate commerce, for the purpose of protecting public morality."
Scalia went on to conclude, "Unless we are to repudiate a long and well-established principle of our jurisprudence, using the federal commerce power to prevent assisted suicide is unquestionably permissible."
What Scalia points to in his dissent is exactly the problem we face in this nation. Members of Congress should not be using their enumerated powers to pass all sorts of laws on matters that they have no authority to delve into.
Concerns over public morality do not provide a license to subvert the Constitution. Most recently, this behavior has been seen in the attempts by Congress to meddle in the policies of professional sports organizations with regard to anabolic steroid use by their athletes.
Yet, the most important piece of the decision was perhaps the short, separate dissent filed by Clarence Thomas. Thomas, who dissented last year in the case of Gonzales v. Raich - a case that struck down a California law that allowed for the use of medical marijuana - noted the Court's complete inconsistency in its rulings.
He stated that, "The majority's newfound understanding of the CSA as a statute of limited reach is all the more puzzling because it rests upon constitutional principles that the majority of the Court rejected in Raich." In Raich, the cultivation and use of medical marijuana was wholly intrastate while, in the Oregon case, the drugs administered to produce death most likely made their way to Oregon through interstate commerce.
Thomas added, "While the scope of the CSA and the Attorney General's power thereunder are sweeping, and perhaps troubling, such expansive federal legislation and broad grants of authority to administrative agencies are merely the inevitable and inexorable consequence of this Court's Commerce Clause and separation-of-powers jurisprudence. I agree with limiting the applications of the CSA in a manner consistent with the principles of federalism and our constitutional structure."
It would be wise for the members of the Supreme Court to not take Justice Thomas' points lightly. Over the decades, the Court and Congress have moved further and further away from the Founder's vision of a limited federal government that respects states' rights and does not overstep the enumerated powers that the Constitution delegates.
The Court's ruling in Gonzales v. Oregon is a positive start. In the future, we can only hope that the Supreme Court will begin to craft a more consistent jurisprudence with regard to these crucial constitutional issues.
Columnist Jesse Starrick is an NCAS political science major.
The Federal government claimed that the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), which allows for the regulation of various drugs, gave them the authority to dictate how the state of Oregon may dispense them, regardless of the wishes of the state's voters and the fact that the Oregon law specifically dictates how and under what circumstances the drugs can be administered to terminally ill patients who choose to end their lives.
It is important to note that Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, permitting physician-assisted suicide, was passed by a 51 percent majority of voters in 1994, and an effort to repeal the law in 1997 was rejected by a 60 percent majority.
The Supreme Court ruled that the CSA does not allow the Attorney General to prohibit physicians from prescribing regulated drugs for the purpose of physician-assisted suicide, under the Oregon law permitting the procedure.
The majority opinion pointed to the fact that the CSA was designed to specifically target "conventional drug abuse," and does not allow the Attorney General to involve himself in medical policy decisions.
Above all else, the CSA presumes - and I would argue that the U.S. Constitution mandates - that issues surrounding the medical profession are best governed under the police powers of the individual states.
The majority also pointed to a 1971 regulation drafted by the Attorney General requiring that every prescription for a controlled substance "be issued for a legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice," and then rhetorically questioned who exactly is responsible for deciding whether a physician's actions are "for a legitimate medical purpose."
The three dissenters - Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia and Thomas - argued that, in their estimate, the term "legitimate medical purpose" surely excludes prescribing drugs to produce death.
Scalia, who authored the dissent, commented that "The prohibition or deterrence of assisted suicide is certainly not among the enumerated powers conferred on the United States by the Constitution…But then, neither is prohibiting the recreational use of drugs or discouraging drug addiction among the enumerated powers. From an early time in our national history, the federal government has used its enumerated powers, such as its power to regulate interstate commerce, for the purpose of protecting public morality."
Scalia went on to conclude, "Unless we are to repudiate a long and well-established principle of our jurisprudence, using the federal commerce power to prevent assisted suicide is unquestionably permissible."
What Scalia points to in his dissent is exactly the problem we face in this nation. Members of Congress should not be using their enumerated powers to pass all sorts of laws on matters that they have no authority to delve into.
Concerns over public morality do not provide a license to subvert the Constitution. Most recently, this behavior has been seen in the attempts by Congress to meddle in the policies of professional sports organizations with regard to anabolic steroid use by their athletes.
Yet, the most important piece of the decision was perhaps the short, separate dissent filed by Clarence Thomas. Thomas, who dissented last year in the case of Gonzales v. Raich - a case that struck down a California law that allowed for the use of medical marijuana - noted the Court's complete inconsistency in its rulings.
He stated that, "The majority's newfound understanding of the CSA as a statute of limited reach is all the more puzzling because it rests upon constitutional principles that the majority of the Court rejected in Raich." In Raich, the cultivation and use of medical marijuana was wholly intrastate while, in the Oregon case, the drugs administered to produce death most likely made their way to Oregon through interstate commerce.
Thomas added, "While the scope of the CSA and the Attorney General's power thereunder are sweeping, and perhaps troubling, such expansive federal legislation and broad grants of authority to administrative agencies are merely the inevitable and inexorable consequence of this Court's Commerce Clause and separation-of-powers jurisprudence. I agree with limiting the applications of the CSA in a manner consistent with the principles of federalism and our constitutional structure."
It would be wise for the members of the Supreme Court to not take Justice Thomas' points lightly. Over the decades, the Court and Congress have moved further and further away from the Founder's vision of a limited federal government that respects states' rights and does not overstep the enumerated powers that the Constitution delegates.
The Court's ruling in Gonzales v. Oregon is a positive start. In the future, we can only hope that the Supreme Court will begin to craft a more consistent jurisprudence with regard to these crucial constitutional issues.
Columnist Jesse Starrick is an NCAS political science major.