High court considers states' rights, medical purposes in Oregon case

Published: 2005-10-05

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Supreme Court Oct. 5 waged a lively discussion over whether then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was right to declare that assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose and physicians who prescribed drugs under an Oregon law could be prosecuted under federal drug control statutes. It was the first major case to be heard by the court with new Chief Justice John Roberts on the bench. Several justices questioned Solicitor General Paul Clement over whether a future attorney general might use the same rationale to stop the use of drugs restricted by the Controlled Substances Act for state or federal executions by lethal injection. Clement said he believed other laws would protect doctors' ability to provide lethal doses of drugs in such cases, but Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter did not appear to be convinced. "The theory the government is advancing this morning ... that (assisted suicide) is outside the normal practice of medicine" might well be used to support the same argument against providing drugs for lethal injection, Souter said.

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