Two Supreme Court decisions on abortion and euthanasia

Two Supreme Court decisions on abortion and euthanasia

Two big Supreme Court decisions regarding issue of the culture of life in the last two days. Yesterday, the court decided in favor of Oregon’s assisted suicide law, although it wasn’t a complete defeat for the pro-life side. In fact, the court didn’t actually say the law itself was constitutional, only that the federal government’s use of the Controlled Substances Act against doctors who prescribe lethal doses of medications to suicides was unconstitutional.

Still, the conservative bloc of the court dissented from the majority’s notion that euthanasia is a medical treatment.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts in dissenting from the majority opinion in the Gonzales v. Oregon case, bridled at the notion that suicide should be recognized as a medical treatment. “If the term ‘legitimate medical purpose’ has any meaning,” he wrote, “it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death.”

The important point to take away from this is that the court still hasn’t ruled on assisted suicide itself and that nothing prevents Congress from amending the Controlled Substances Act to make it clear that drugs cannot be used to kill people.

Parental notification in New Hampshire

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