Terre Haute, IN — In a unanimous decision, the Alaska Supreme Court has
held that there is no right to physician-assisted suicide under the privacy or equal protection provisions of Alaska's state constitution. The 5-0 Alaska decision is the most recent in a lengthening line of court holdings that reject the claim that there is a constitutional right for physicians to assist in the suicides of terminally ill persons by prescribing lethal drug overdoses for them.
According to James Bopp, Jr., President of the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent & Disabled, “This decision drives a stake close to the heart of the movement to legalize euthanasia through the courts. The
proponents of legalized assisted suicide had a two-pronged strategy of
bringing cases in both federal and state courts, claiming that assisted
suicide bans violate both the United States and State Constitutions,” said
Bopp. “They've now lost every case they've brought in both arenas. It
looks like they've gone down two dead-end streets.”
The National Legal Center filed an amicus brief in the Alaska case arguing
that recognition of a state right to assisted suicide would result in legalized killing of mentally compromised and physically disabled persons by way of legal surrogate decisionmaking and due to social and economic pressures.
The Alaska high court agreed that legalization might well implicate
“judg[ing] others on the basis of physical and mental disabilities, race,
ethnicity, social-standing, and other factors unacceptable in life-valuing
decision-making.” The Alaska court also held that the history of Alaska law precluded recognition of such a right under its constitution and that equal protection was not denied because patients might choose to order life-sustaining treatment withdrawn, but could not legally secure drugs to
directly cause their own deaths.
The United States Supreme Court rejected recognition of a federal right to physician-assisted suicide four years ago. The Supreme Court of Michigan and a California appeals court had also previously refused to acknowledge such a right. But assisted suicide advocates brought claims based on state constitutions in Florida and Alaska courts.
Both Florida and Alaska have explicit constitutional “right to privacy”
provisions that could be read to favor assisted suicide, and the courts of both states are known for free-wheeling decisions. However, the Florida Supreme Court rejected recognition of a right to physician-assisted suicide in 1997. With the decision of the Alaska Supreme Court, there is now a significant body of case law now rejecting both federal and state claims for recognition of a right to assisted suicide. No court of highest jurisdiction recognizes such a right.
Attempts to legalize the practice by voter initiative failed in California, Washington, Michigan, and Maine. Only Oregon has legalized physician-assisted suicide — through a voter initiative that went into effect in 1997. But Oregon's permissive assisted suicide practice may soon be in jeopardy as well. U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft is expected to rule that the federal Controlled Substances Act forbids the use of barbiturates and other drugs subject to federal regulation to be used for assisted suicide or mercy killing. In the wake of such a ruling, prescribing or dispensing these drugs for physician-assisted suicide would be in violation of federal law regardless of the Oregon state law.
(This article courtesy of the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)