Right-to-die ruling could play well here
High court's decision in support of Oregon law raises hopes in California
By Steve Geissinger, SACRAMENTO BUREAU
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Oregon's assisted-suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration challenge and boosting efforts by Democratic legislators to enact a similar law in California.
The high court blocked the Bush administration's attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die, protecting Oregon's one-of-a-kind assisted-suicide law.
The Bush administration improperly tried to use a federal drug law to pursue Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of prescription medicines, the court said in a rebuke to former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling could encourage other states besides California to consider copying Oregon's law, used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people in Oregon.
The decision, one of the biggest expected from the court this year, also could set the stage for Congress to attempt to outlaw assisted suicide. Reacting to the court ruling, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was open to looking at the bill by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, and Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, whose north coast district stretches from the Oregon border to Sonoma County.
"I'd really have to see the see the way it is written so that I can comment on it," said the Republican governor, who is moving toward the middle politically in Democrat-leaning California as he seeks re-election this year.
A poll earlier this month by the Pew Center for the People and the Press found 70 percent of Americans believe in the idea of doctor-assisted suicide, mirroring earlier surveys in California.
Berg said she was "very pleased that the governor has an open mind on this," adding that "we have been in conversations with his staff."
Levine said the court decision and Schwarzenegger's reaction "will allow all of us to move forward as we try to provide better end-of-life care and then comfort to those who are wishing to hasten their own death to avoid suffering."
Their bill, modeled after the Oregon law, would allow terminally ill people to receive a lethal prescription to hasten their deaths. It is opposed by some sectors of the Christian community and some disabled activists. Doctors are split over the measure.
Foes of the measure, which was carried over from last year after falling short of votes, said they expect to kill it this second year of a two-year legislative session.
"The Supreme Court's decision should not be construed as an endorsement of assisted suicide, but a state's rights issue," said Teresa Favuzzi of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers.
"Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority — him, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
It was the first loss for Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined the court's most conservative members — Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — in a long but restrained dissent.
With this decision, Kennedy showed signs of becoming a more influential swing voter after O'Connor departs. He is a moderate conservative who sometimes joins more liberal members on cases involving such things as gay rights and capital punishment.
In some ways, the decision was an anticlimactic end to the court's latest clash over assisted suicide.
The case was argued in October on Roberts' second day on the bench, and he strongly hinted that he would back the Bush administration. Some court watchers had expected O'Connor to be the decisive vote, which could have delayed the case until her successor was on the court.
Justices have dealt with end-of-life cases before, most recently in 1997 when the court unanimously ruled that people have no constitutional right to die. That decision, by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, left room for states to set their own rules.
The Tuesday ruling and dissents were tinged with an understanding about the delicate nature of the subject. The court itself is aging, and the death of Rehnquist in September after a yearlong fight with cancer was emotional for the justices.
Scalia said in his dissent that the court's ruling "is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal government's business. It is easy to sympathize with that position."
At the same time, Scalia said federal officials have the power to regulate doctors in prescribing addictive drugs and "if the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death."
He was joined in the dissent by Thomas and Roberts. Roberts did not write separately to explain his vote. Thomas also wrote his own dissent.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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