Posted on 10/10/2005 9:31:15 AM PDT by conservativebabe
No, it is determining what is and what is not a crime within the borders of its state. Something that has always been the perogative of every state.
Darn it, I have to cut out for a while (parent/teacher conference). I'll look forward to reading more when I return.
THEN we'll see if you are against humane and painless assisted suicide.
Neither you nor your loved one have the guts to resolve this yourselves. You want a doctor to do it for you, lending some respectability to legalized killing.
Actually over 200 years, going back to the Federalist papers that argue about what and what isn't in the constitution.
There are a lot of different schools of construction of the constitution. No legitimate school starts from the premise that it is easy, however. Even the "originalist" Scalia is an example of a first rate mind that finds it hard, and even sometimes can still get it wrong.
Can you invision a scenario where what a state is doing goes against the desires of the nation as a whole and is morally repugnant to most? Does the federal government have a case, or duty even, to step in and stop it?
Just curious.
Actually, all the courts will be deciding on is if doctors can use federally classified drugs to end a life. If the doctors in Oregon want to, I guess they could shoot people, or operate and take out their hearts etc.
I do however worry that allowing assisted suicide will open up doors that we don't want to. What is to stop the assisted portion of it to be limited to ones doctor? And what if your personal doctor says no? Should you be able to doctor shop until you find one who agrees to kill you? Should you be able to employ any person of your choosing to kill you? If not, why not? Is there something special about doctors that makes them the only ones capable of legally killing you?
How long until state ordered killings start?
When the state says that it is lawful for special group x to commit act y, that is license.
A family member can't do it because it is illegal to take a human life. A terminally ill patient who is lying in bed from cancer/stroke/pneumonia doesn't have the strength to eat, drink, or take a crap.. let alone "take care of it" himself.
This law permits the humane ending of a human life under strict guidelines and medical supervision when the patient has decided their suffering is too much to endure.
What?
How about the state's right to allow its citizens to off themselves if they see so fit?
Second, I feverishly wish that 10th ammendment activists could find a firmer reed to hang their case on than doctor assisted suicide.
Not true. Medical Marijuana is just one example that proves you wrong. States can attempt to make it legal but the feds just squash them down.
I am an Oregonian. I voted against physician assisted suicide and would be happy to do so again.
It ought to be overturned for the following reasons.
1. Suicide = insanity. People who want to kill themselves are not mentally or emotionally capable of making such a decisions.
2. There are alternatives to suicide for people who are suffering.
3. The constitution allows Congress to regulate interstate trade. The drugs in question are sold in interstate trade, therefore Congress may regulate their use. If they choose to do so, federal law trumps state law.
4. If people want to kill themselves, they should just do it and not make the State of Oregon a party to their foolishness.
5. Who died and made physicians God?
6. The potential for abuse is just too great. Oregon will be the big vacation spot for the affluent and sick elderly and their greedy relatives in 2010, (the one year period in which the estate tax is phased out under current tax law).
They are not doing that. They are empowering doctors to do it.
The problem with the Oregon law, is they are getting doctors involved and it's going to have impact all around the country. I don't understand what's libertarian about people who want to kill themselves forcing the government to get involved. How many terminally ill people were prosecuted for suicide before this law went into effect. But now we are manipulated into a position were doctors get to decide which patients are qualified to live. (which they eventually do under these laws) When universal healthcare gets here, gov't doctors get to decide if I'm worthy of life, and you call that liberty?
It's a matter of perspective. If you view the government as granting us our freedoms, then you are correct. I come at it with the perspective that all the government does is limit freedom. From that point of view, something not being illegal is not the same as a license.
I can see the Tenth Amendment issue here, Phantom: And it ain't "chopped liver."
On the other hand, it seems wrong for a would-be suicide to recruit accomplices. It's bad enough to want to off one's self in the first place; but to make others a party to the act makes it worse.
I find something horrific in the statement that "death with dignity" can be accomplished by means of suicide. People who believe such must be very weak and scared. Bottom line, they are afraid of life -- of living though a last painful illness.
It will be interesting (how's that for an understatement?!) to see how SCOTUS rules on this one.
Are the Feds acting in accordance with the original intent of the Commerce Clause, in you view?
The constitution does not speak to suicide, so neither should the federal gvt.
Why not just pass a constitutional amendment rather than hope that the judges legislate your (and my) morality on the bench. Are we only against liberal activist judges?
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