c. 1997 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ Just one day after delivering what many in the religious community consider a devastating blow to religious freedom, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, Thursday (June 26) gave those same groups a major victory by upholding state laws forbidding doctor-assisted euthanasia.”In almost every state _ indeed, in almost every Western democracy _ it is a crime to assist a suicide,”Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the court’s opinion.”The states’ assisted suicide bans are not innovations. Rather they are longstanding expressions of states’ commitment to the protection and preservation of human life.” In the decision, the court upheld laws in Washington and New York states _ overturned by lower federal courts _ that make it a crime for doctors to give life-ending drugs to mentally competent but terminally ill patients who no longer want to live.
For religious groups, the assisted-suicide ruling climaxed what has been a topsy-turvy Supreme Court term.
Thursday’s ruling came just one day after the court delivered what many in the religious community believe was a devastating blow to church-state relations by striking down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law making it more difficult for government to interfere with religious practices. Also on Thursday, to the dismay of many religious groups, the court said Congress violated free speech rights when it passed laws to protect children from pornography on the Internet.
And the assisted-suicide ruling came just a week after the court lowered church-state barriers by overturning its own 1985 law that barred public school teachers from entering religious schools to provide federally funded remedial education to students.”The history of the law’s treatment of assisted suicide in this country has been and continues to be one of the rejection of nearly all efforts to permit it,”Rehnquist wrote.”That being the case, our decisions lead us to conclude that the asserted `right’ to assistance in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the due-process clause”of the Constitution.
Three justices _ Sandra Day O’Connor, John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter, each wrote a separate concurring opinion, with Souter suggesting he could change his mind if Congress or state legislatures enacted laws allowing assisted suicide.”While I do not decide for all time that (the) claim (to a constitutional right) should not be recognized, I acknowledge the legislative institutional competence as the better one to deal with that claim at this time,”Souter said.
The case had been closely watched by the religious community, the medical profession and legal experts, with most religious leaders urging the court to maintain the ban. Many of them had filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the justices to find the New York and Washington laws constitutional.”The Supreme Court displayed wisdom and restraint today by upholding state laws that protected terminally ill patients from those who would offer to `assist’ their suicides,”said Roman Catholic Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston.”The court’s ruling is consonant with two centuries of legal tradition, and over 20 centuries of moral wisdom recognizing that healers must not be agents of death,”Law added.
Other groups voicing support for the ruling included the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Focus on the Family, The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the Family Research Council.
New York Attorney General Dennis C. Vacco, who argued the constitutionality of his state’s ban before the Court, hailed the ruling.”This ruling will protect Americans from a regime that says it’s cheaper to kill patients than to treat them,”he said in a statement.
But the rulings are not likely to be the last word on the debate.
The Hemlock Society, which supports legal euthanasia, issued a statement quoting director Faye Girsh as saying,”For us, it is back to business as usual.” Choice in Dying, a New York-based group that says it is neutral on the issue of doctor-assisted suicide but seeks to foster communication on end-of-life decisions, said that”regardless of the Supreme Court, we (the nation) still have a problem. The problem is that we as a society have not devoted enough time, attention and resources to ensuring that everyone has wide access to humane, compassionate alternatives at the end of life _ incluing hospice care, palliative and effective pain management.” And the American Jewish Congress urged that the continuing debate be done with”the care, gravity and concern that this subject demands.””That the Constitution does not provide a uniform answer to the difficult questions airing from the confluence of modern technology and terminal illness does not mean that these questions will go away,”said Lois Waldman, co-director of the Jewish group’s Commission on Law and Social Action.
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The ruling was also welcomed by secular and religious medical organizations including the Christian Medical and Dental Society and the American Medical Association.”To assist in intentionally taking the life of a patient is counter to the health care profession’s central mission of healing,”said Dr. Nancy Dickey, chairwoman of the AMA.”To suggest a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide would have so fundamentally altered the relationship between the patient and his or her physician that it would have undermined the principles of medical ethics that we, as a profession, work to protect.” Although most states, like Washington and New York, have laws against assisted suicide, one state _ Oregon _ has enacted a measure that permits it. Thursday’s ruling does affect the Oregon law _ approved in a voter referendum _ but it is being challenged in the courts and the state legislature has agreed to send the measure back to voters in November.
Congress passed a bill in April forbidding the use of federal funds for doctor-assisted suicide.
President Clinton also voiced support for the court’s ruling.”The decision is a victory for all Americans,”Clinton said in a statement.”It prevents us from going down a very dangerous and troubling path on this difficult and often agonizing issue.”
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