I'm already exhausted at the thought of wrangling with this one, but its big and will probably bear-upon how aggressive the conservative-leaning Supreme Court will be regarding abortion laws. Will the Justices throw all their weight behind this one, and if so, will it diminish their ability to curtail Roe v. Wade?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171309,00.html

quote:

Under Rehnquist's leadership the court had sought to embolden states to set their own rules. Roberts, who once served as a law clerk to Rehnquist and worked as a government lawyer, may be sympathetic to Bush administration arguments that the federal government needs ultimate authority to control drugs.

In this case, that would be at odds with the concept, popular among conservatives, of limiting federal interference.

However one feels about assisted suicide, I think the states should be allowed to set their own laws on this.

Agreed.

I don't understand how some issues are considered states rights, while others fall under the province of federal law. The latter is generally supposed to apply to norms most everyone agrees upon, or to issues that cross state lines (one of the justifications for the feds involvement in abortion, drunk-driving, and a few other issues). Is there some danger, here, of discrepancies between state rulings that could somehow endanger the populace?

Tricky. Rehnquist's sympathy for Oregon's law seemed to extend beyond his federalist notions. With most of the Justices being older, at least for now I'm guessing they'll not support the notion, presented by the White House legal team, that the issue really revolves around federal control of drugs; it's much more volatile than that.

Personally, I can only support Physician Supported Suicide if the normative hospice attempts at pain management are futile. In my experience, that's pretty rare. I've seen cancer patients put on morphine pumps, and this seems to work for the more intractable pain.

If the White House fails in its attempts on this issue, it may gain more favor among the Justices when readdressing abortion.

I don't understand how some issues are considered states rights, while others fall under the province of federal law.

Me neither, Phil. We need a house lawyer. But I think what's also interesting about this issue is that is reveals just how easily and how much one's philosophy can bear on some issues, particularly those issues that are not so cut-and-dried (which is quite different than hammering one's ideology so hard into an issue that you find things in the Constitution that clearly aren't there). Rehnquist clearly had a bias (a correct one, in my opinion) toward strengthening the whole idea of Federalism. We've been drifting probably since the time of Lincoln (if not earlier) to more and more centralized control from Washington DC. That isn't usually good.

As many people have stated, abortion would not be the nearly the divisive issue that it is today if the Supreme Court justices had not imposed their narrow views on everyone else and if this issue had been left to the states to decide individually. Some states would have allowed it. Some would not. But his would have allowed the people to decide this difficult issue and for the norms and morals to be expressed and eventually shaped in the active laboratory of Federalism. People and other states learn a lot by watching their neighbors including everything from school choice to welfare reform. So it would likely be the case with assisted suicide. I don't immediately see anything in the constitution that has any say on this. As someone pointed out on a local radio talk show, we have the right to life, as stated in the Constitution, but that says nothing about the requirement of those who can make a conscious choice to live.

Personally, I can only support Physician Supported Suicide if the normative hospice attempts at pain management are futile. In my experience, that's pretty rare. I've seen cancer patients put on morphine pumps, and this seems to work for the more intractable pain.

As I understand it, there already pretty much is assisted suicide to some degree just in the normal treatment that comes to terminal patience. We do remove people from life support. But perhaps an issue that is in everyone's mind but is not being "outed" is that I would imagine few people really have a problem with assisted suicide for the terminally ill, especially if they are in great pain. But once the door is opened for assisted suicide they you're going to have healthy young people (despondent and depressed though they may be) being assisted in their death. That's where this gets very ugly. And you just know there will be some overzealous doctors (there always are) who, say, hate life and just are generally spiteful of traditional standards and who will be only too glad to talk some young people into suicide when what they needed was loving care and some counseling. Doctor assisted suicide can open the door to a sort of legalized Jonestown.

Certainly these objections might be overcome by carefully written laws, but history shows that once you open that door that all the rest will come rushing through as well. You'll eventually have crazed and angry people zealously pushing for suicide just as they do now for abortion. And just like abortion, assisted suicide won't be promoted as a reluctant, but necessary, option. It will be promoted as a Sacrament of the religion of liberalism.

There is something very much to be said for the Catholic idea of a culture of life. But still, I think we need to make allowances for assisting the terminally ill and those in terrible pain. Governments are formed in order to secure our freedoms. We must not have governments telling us we must live. That is the ultimate slavish control.

Well said. As for hospice, it is pain management as a mercy that justifies the extent to which morphine accelerates the body's shutting down.