SCOTUS Ruling Undermines Doctor-Patient Relationship, Say Critics
by Jody Brown, Allie Martin, and Bill Fancher
January 18, 2006
(AgapePress) - - On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court let stand Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law. Since its inception in 1997, the law has been used to end the lives of more than 200 people.
The Oregon Death With Dignity Act (ODWDA) exempts from civil or criminal liability state-licensed physicians who, in compliance with the Act's specific safeguards, dispense or prescribe a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of a terminally ill patient. In 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an Interpretive Rule to address the implementation and enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) with respect to ODWDA, declaring that using controlled substances to assist suicide is not a legitimate medical practice and that dispensing or prescribing them for this purpose is unlawful under the CSA.
Yesterday, the high court ruled 6-3 in Gonzales v. Oregon that Oregon's law trumped federal authority to regulate doctors. The ruling backs an earlier decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Dissenting were Chief Justice John Roberts and Associated Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, claiming that federal officials do have the power to regulate prescription drugs. In his 25-page dissent, Scalia wrote that "If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death."
Robert Kenneth of the Death with Dignity National Center in Oregon says the Supreme Court ruling "permits physicians to care for dying patients in a way that is humane and dignified."
Pro-Life, Legal Reaction
Responding to the court's decision, the head of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations says doctors now have "a license to kill." Dr. David Stevens says that is the effect of the decision which effectively blocks federal prosecution of doctors who help patients die under Oregon's assisted-suicide law. He says the ruling dangerously alters the doctor-patient relationship.
"Doctors are no longer required to only prescribe sedatives to comfort and heal," Stevens tells Associated Press. "Now they can prescribe them to kill."
Stevens also says the elderly and infirm may feel pressured to choose suicide rather than burden their families with expensive medical care. "In our money-driven health-care system, that's dangerous," he says. "The cheapest form of medical care is always a handful of lethal drugs."
Steve Peroutka of the National Pro-Life Action Center has similar concerns. He describes the implications as "horrible."
"If you could put together a package that could kill somebody that costs $50; or you have to keep them alive for the next year, two years, or three years and it might cost $100,000," he says, laying out the scenario, "the economic pressure that's put on hospitals, doctors, [and] families will be too much to bear."
Peroutka says Justice Scalia was correct in his dissent when he pointed out the decision goes against all that the practice of medicine stands for.
The legislative counsel for National Right to Life concurs. "This sets a dangerous precedent for all vulnerable Americans, especially those with disabilities and life- or health-threatening illnesses," says Dorothy Timbs. "Drugs should be used to cure and relieve pain, never to kill."
But Tony Perkins, president of the Washington, DC-based Family Research Council, cautions that the court's decision is not an endorsement of assisted suicide. "All it means is that, under this particular statute [ODWDA], the Attorney General may not prohibit a state from permitting federally regulated drugs to be used in assisted suicide," Perkins says.
In fact, says the FRC leader, it would be "entirely appropriate" for Congress to revise the Controlled Substances Act, making it clear that such drugs may not be used to facilitate what he calls "state-sanctioned assisted suicide." Still, he adds, "it is important that the traditional understanding of the medical role as one of healing not be confused by licensing doctors to kill."
Brian Fahling is senior trial attorney with the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy. He says the Supreme Court came down on the side of state's rights.
"What is at issue is not the medical practice itself, per se, from the court's perspective; in other words, they're not making a comment about the wisdom of having a law that permits doctors to assist in killing people," the attorney explains. "What they are saying is that the federal government does not have the authority to regulate what has been historically exclusively a state area -- and that is medical practice. And that's not outside the mainstream of Supreme Court jurisprudence."
As to the make up of the 6-3 split on the high court, Fahling has this observation. "I think it is interesting that you do have Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts in the dissent. It'll be interesting to see how they overcome the commerce clause arguments and the federalism arguments in this particular case, because historically ... conservatives don't look at the wisdom of the state's policy," he says. "What they look at is whether they believe the federal government has authority under the Constitution to regulate in a particular area."
Fahling, though, says he concurs with the minority in Gonzales v. Oregon. "To the degree the case depended upon the meaning of 'legitimate medical practice,' Justice Scalia's words could not have been more apt."
Another Christian attorney, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, offers these thought-provoking observations: "Since controlled substances are regulated under federal law, permitting such drugs to be used to end life compels all Americans to indirectly become complicit in euthanasia," he says. And when a physician participates in a person's suicide by administering controlled substances, Staver says it causes the line between "healer and executioner" to become blurred -- "and the sanctity of life is lost," he adds.
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