Christianity Today has published a news story and an editorial on the Supreme Court’s Oregon v. Gonzalez decision. Here’s how other prolife organizations are responding to the decision.
Christian Medical Association With narcotics free to be used for purposes that have no medical benefit whatsoever, the ‘do no harm’ requirement of medicine—a long-standing protection for patients—is lost. This lethal violation of medical ethics erases a prohibition that has protected patients since the time of Hippocrates. Before Hippocrates, patients couldn’t know for sure if their doctor would heal them or kill them. This decision moves the practice of medicine one step closer to ethical mayhem.
The ethical foundation of medicine is crumbling under the Court’s jackhammer.
Doctors are no longer required to only prescribe sedatives to comfort and heal; now they can prescribe them to kill. Assisted suicide does not give more power to the patient. It gives more power to the doctor—to be judge, jury and assistant executioner.
As Oregon has already shown, the so-called safeguards don’t work. With the patient dead and the doctor not talking, who knows what really happened?
Killing is not a legitimate medical purpose. Legalized assisted suicide gives doctors the right to help kill, and in our money-driven healthcare system, that’s dangerous. The cheapest form of medical care is always a handful of lethal drugs.
—David Stevens, executive director
The Controlled Substances Act was designed to prevent using drugs for non-medical purposes in every state–not every state except Oregon. When a state or a doctor uses such drugs not to heal or to relieve pain, but simply to kill, that is not a medical purpose. Killing doesn’t require medical training or compassion.
What we need is not more power for doctors who use drugs to kill their patients, but more power for doctors who use drugs to heal and comfort their patients. Over time, the face of healthcare will change dramatically if doctors are granted the power to kill. It is a change we will regret.
—Gene Rudd, associate executive director
Focus on the Family Action Today’s ruling forces the federal government to sit idly by while drugs are misused by doctors and patients in Oregon. Physician-assisted suicide is certainly not ‘patient care and treatment’—it is the promotion of self-killing.
Proponents of physician-assisted suicide will, no doubt, claim this ruling rejuvenates their tired argument that there is “dignity” in taking your own life—an argument that Americans have increasingly rejected. The truth is that the court did not condone physician-assisted suicide at all. Today’s decision was simply about the federal government’s authority to regulate narcotics, not a justification of assisted suicide.
—Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics
American Center for Law and Justice This is a disappointing decision that is likely to result in a troubling movement by states to pass their own assisted suicide laws. It is unfortunate that a majority of the court stripped the federal government of an important safeguard to ensure that federally controlled narcotics could not be used by licensed physicians to take the life of a patient who wants to commit suicide. This is a disturbing and dangerous decision that can only lessen the value of protecting human life.
—Jay Sekulow, chief counsel
Liberty Counsel When a physician participates in a person’s suicide by administering controlled substances, the line between healer and executioner is blurred, and the sanctity of life is lost. America should not become like Sweden, where patients wonder whether a physician with a syringe brings life or death. Since controlled substances are regulated under federal law, permitting such drugs to be used to end life compels all Americans to indirectly become complicit in euthanasia.
—Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel
American Life League “Today’s Supreme Court ruling, which rejects a federal attempt to override Oregon’s assisted-suicide law, shows the urgent need for a national prohibition against this form of killing. The taking of an innocent human being’s life, no matter what a person’s physical or mental state may be, is always wrong.
Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. Assisting a person to kill himself is, in fact, euthanasia. It is morally unacceptable.
At its core, this ruling removes all protections for the lives of all persons in Oregon whose doctors predict they have less than six months to live. While the current case involves voluntary euthanasia, it is just another step toward forced euthanasia. Unfortunately, today’s ruling will likely be used as another vehicle to further the culture of death.
—Jim Sedlak, vice president
Family Research Council Today’s Supreme Court decision is not an endorsement of assisted suicide. All it means is that, under this particular statute, the Attorney General may not prohibit a state from permitting federally-regulated drugs to be used in assisted suicide – provided, of course, that the particular state has legalized assisted suicide, something Oregon alone has done.
It is important that the traditional understanding of the medical role as one of healing not be confused by licensing doctors to kill. Assisted suicide is a perversion of the medical profession because it violates a fundamental ethical principle of medicine, ‘First, Do No Harm.’ As Justice Scalia noted in his dissent, ‘If the term legitimate medical purpose [a term used in the federal regulatory scheme] has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death.’ Thus, it is entirely appropriate for Congress to revise the Controlled Substances Act to make clear that federally-regulated drugs may not be used to facilitate state-sanctioned assisted suicide.
State-sanctioned assisted suicide is no substitute for palliative care, which has made tremendous progress in pain management for those who are suffering. Suicide among the elderly and those suffering from serious illness or disability is a tragic public health problem deserving a thoughtful, caring response.
—Tony Perkins, president
Also of note:
Not Dead Yet Both the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court have failed us. First we continue our criticism of the Administration for not bringing the challenge to the Oregon law under the Americans With Disabilities Act. As Justice Kennedy points out, the law “only” applies to very sick people. Making suicide easy and socially approved for people who, according to the Oregon Reports, feel like burdens on their families, is discrimination against a socially devalued group. Assisted suicide is not a benefit, it’s a threat. It’s no accident that Oregon has the highest elder suicide rate in the U.S., apart from the Oregon Law. …
Judging by the split in the Court vote, it’s clear that the Court accepted the usual portrayal of assisted suicide as an issue of “compassionate progressives” versus the “religious right,” completely ignoring the discrimination argument. If the values of liberty really dictate that society legalizes assisted suicide, then legalize it for everyone who asks for it, not just the devalued old, ill and disabled. Otherwise, what looks like freedom is really only discrimination.
—Diane Coleman, president
Other organizations that filed amicus curiae briefs against Oregon’s law, but haven’t commented on the decision yet:
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
- Americans United for Life
- Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation
- International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
- Catholic Medical Association
- National Association of Pro-Life Nurses
- Thomas More Society
- Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund (no website?)
- National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent & Disabled (no website?)
One last item:
There’s one religious coalition that filed an amicus curiae brief that won’t be filing a press release against the Supreme Court’s decision. That’s because the ad hoc group supported Oregon’s assisted suicide law. Among the groups and individuals who signed the brief to “support an individual’s freedom to choose physician-assisted suicide as a moral and honorable means of ending one’s life with dignity and grace” were the United Church of Christ’s Justice and Witness arm, Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane, First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn senior minister Paul Smith, and Westminster Presbyterian Church (Sacramento, Ca.) senior pastor David Thompson.
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Related Elsewhere:
The opinion and a transcript of the oral arguments are available from the Supreme Court website.
Christianity Today‘s earlier coverage of the Oregon assisted-suicide law includes:
Supreme Court Upholds Oregon’s Suicide Law | Says federal law regulates illicit drug dealing and trafficking, not “medicine.” (Jan 17, 2005)
It’s Okay to Be Against Suicide | The temptation to evade moral pronouncements is ever with us. A Christianity Today editorial (Nov. 30, 2005)
Ashcroft’s Revenge | Challenge to suicide law gets new life. (March 16, 2005)
Death Wishes | Circuit Court supports state’s primary role in assisted suicide. (July 15, 2004)
Severe Mercy in Oregon | How two dying patients dealt with a new right: When to die. (June 14, 1999)
Lies We’ve Heard Before | The same flawed arguments that legalized abortion are now used to support physician-assisted suicide. (July 13, 1998)
Bill Would Limit Lethal Drugs | A new bill before Congress could prohibit the use of federally controlled drugs for physician-assisted suicide. But critics say the measure would restrict legitimate use of painkillers for terminally ill patients. (October 26, 1998)
What Really Died in Oregon | The state’s voter-approved suicide law represents more than an extreme belief in personal autonomy. (Jan. 12, 1998)
Doctor-Assisted Suicide Stirs Physicians’ Fears | Tremors from last month’s major medical and moral earthquake in Oregon soon will be felt across the nation. (Dec. 8, 1997)
