[Supreme Court]

Court Upholds Oregon's Death with Dignity Law.

By a 6-3 decision (more on that in a moment), the Supremes handed down a decision preserving Oregon's landmark Death with Dignity law:

The Supreme Court upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die....

The administration improperly tried to use a drug law to prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribe overdoses, the court majority said.

"Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote.

The argument centered around John Ashcroft's attempt to imprison doctors, based on his assertion that it was not a "legitimate medical purpose" for doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs. This is actually a rather remarkable ruling, because it will now open up the door for assisted suicide across the country, and will ignite a legitimate end-of-life debate. The Terri Schiavo types will no longer have the courts to hide behind. For liberals, this is an especially important victory, because assisted suicide is gaining wider popularity. Reasons for opposing it--the imposition of religious will--will be difficult to defend politically. (Not that the "values" crowd won't try to force them, anyway.)

Oh, and it should be noted that the law had passed a number of previous court challenges. The Ninth District ruled that ""unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide."

The bad news: Roberts joined the minority and agreed with Scalia and Thomas that federal officials had the authority to stop Oregon's practice. (Which seems at odds with the whole originalism thing at first glance. Maybe I'll dig around and see if this is as hypocritical as it appears to be.) So with one ruling we learn that the new (very young) chief justice isn't a moderate after all. (Shocking! "But he's so nice! So handsome! His boy is so cute!") Alito, also polite, with a wife who cries, may shock some Americans when he, too, joins that growing nucleus of radical jurists.

But that's for another day. This ruling, and its positive implications, made it through.

Further: If you want to join a discussion among Oregonians who've followed this case closely, BlueOregon has a couple threads started: a general thread, and one about Roberts.