Justice Scalia's dissent, in which the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas (of course) joined, is worth reading. Scalia doesn't go off on his usual "original intent" foolishness. Instead, he uses recent Supreme Court decisions to show that the Court is ignoring virtually everything that it decided in the past on THIS issue. Shows he can do it when he chooses, I guess.
Thanks Supreme Court for this ruling. I live in an 55+ community and do not know of anyone who is opposed to "death with dignity". Perhaps California will adopt a law similar to that of Oregon, either by leglislation or though the initiative process.
Conservatives seem to imagine that this is another right to life issue, wherein the weakest are most imperiled. It's not. After medical marijuana, consider this decision to be another green-light - and arguably a more important one - for other states to follow. I found the vivid left-right split of the Court surprising, and nosborne validates the surprise. But whatever happened to states rights arguments? Conservatives, it seems, are only originalists of convenience - not principle. That scares me!
Why do you need legislation to kill yourself? If you want to die (with dignity or otherwise) go down a bottle of morphine and abort yourself. Why do you need the state to sanction your suicide?
Casey, I believe that the Scalian doctrine of original intent is foolish, anti-democratic, and intellectually dishonest. If you want to know why I think so, pm me and I'll give you some references. After that, if you still disagree and are interested, I'll be happy to debate it in public. But I want to be sure, first, that we are arguing about the same thing. As to why the state needs to permit suicide? There are very good reasons, indeed. At common law, suicide was a felony crime. As silly as it sounds, certain decidedly unsilly consequences flow: -Attempt to commit a felony is itself a felony. The unsuccessful suicide faces criminal (or more likely quasi-criminal) sanctions for the attempt. -Assisting another to commit a felony is itself a felony. Any physician, say, who provides advice, drugs or machinery to the would be suicide could himself be vicariously guilty of the crime of suicide or attempted suicide -Suggesting or advising to another that he commit a felony is itself a felony crime called "solicitation" (I am oversimplifying like mad, here, but you get the idea.) -Planning with another to commit a felony is itself the felony crime of "conspiracy". So if a potential suicide must rely on outside help and advice, that help and advice will not be available so long as suicide is a crime. And that's why it matters.
True, one could just go sit in a car and turn on the engine - but in many cases the terminally ill patent is physically impaired and would require the help of someone else (history shows that such aid can lead to a murder conviction).
